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Thursday, April 17, 2008

Royal Harbour, Ramsgate - The Glory Days!

Today's one of those days where - with a little imagination - you get just a flavour of how the harbour used to be: full of visiting sailing ships, each with its own story to tell, each with a crew from exotic lands (OK, today they'll be mostly Dutch), each fighting their way in to the Harbour under full sail in the teeth of a storm (OK, it's a nice day, and they'll come in under their auxiliary power). Like I said, it's just a flavour of times past, as the Heineken challenge delivers up to 20 tall ships for a short visit.

This card (published by Ramsgate Libraries, so not in itself a great antique) shows the harbour in 1795, with just the inner harbour built, and even that look little more than a beach with a wall in this view.

old harbour scene Ramsgate

All together now... aaaaahhhh...

1 comment:

Michael Child said...

Sad news I’m afraid, the tall ships have cancelled their visit to Ramsgate harbour today, as the rising winds would have made their final leg to the celebrations at Ostende uncertain.