The last place on earth

Dungeness has been fought over by many organisations over the centuries. Curiously, the French and Germans who were seen as the biggest threat to the place, have shown no interest in taking over the area at any point. The Ministry of Defence, the Ministry for War, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Nature Conservancy as well as railwaycompanies and Port Authorities have all wanted a piece of the place at one time or another and often all at once. 

The current battle, if there still is one, concerns the RSPB and The Atomic Energy Authority, whose edifices sit at the far end of the promontory, requiring 750 people to keep the place from doing whatever nuclear power stations do when they are closing. down. Having knuckled under the power of the state energy requirements for a long time, it is just possible the conservationists are seeing the positive side of hot water feeding the birds just off the coast line outside the plant.

We were just crazy enough to join our friends in a large shack right next to this failed future of our energy needs. The first 3 photographs give you a sense of the place from close quarters. The foreground shows what some might call the garden behind our house looking over at the big house.

No, the clouds are not coming out of the great chimney, they are sneaking up on us from the south west.

This one reduces the scale of the big house and shows its insignificance alongside the vast stretch of shingle. So hard to believe that it has arrived in just a few centuries via long shore drift and will be off again before very long. 

Here we see the round house which either belongs to the lighthouse or is an RSPB observatory. The black lighthouse behind it has been decommissioned for a century ago and replaced by a bigger one  closer to the shore.

Here we can see the shore at low tide where there is a little reddish sand visible for the toes to feel among the pebbles. The winds were light and the waves were small most of the time we were there.

It would be wrong to suggest that the place is all about power, whether human energy or the much greater power of sea, wind and waves. (That reminds me that one of my students presented a wind and wave alternative to Tony Benn, the Labour Energy Minister of a time long ago. A fine scientist, he was totally out of his depth competing with huge vested interests of the time. How pathetic of Harwell to send a junior scientist, however brilliant, into a den of power brokers.) Meanwhile the little people have built their shacks along the shore and hauled their fishing boats up beside them.  Nature has given them her own kind of garden. I just love all the poppies

  

The place would not exist without the sea, driving ashore a seemingly endless supply of pebbles.  Is the sea the same wherever you visit it? Round the isle of White it looks really dirty Here it brings ashore thousands of tiny jelly fish; or are they only in the lea of the power station. Many of the shacks are hidden behind the shingle headland, protected from the wind, but deprived of a view. It is a bit like being in a gravel pit.

This image speaks to me about the overwhelming mystery and magic of the area. 

Is this the edge of the world? 

Sadly, an image cannot give the full impression of arriving here. It is about atmosphere, something tight, almost smothering. I wondered if it would be hard to breathe at night.

It was the evening of the summer solstice the day we arrived. We watched the sun go down over the edge of the power plant accompanied by its pylons, now left standing sentry to an energy that no longer flows their way

The moon showed up in close conjunction with her old friend Venus. Another planet was over to the right but this picture has not caught it. Look how the place glows in the dark!

Sunray, the property we occupied, had a front garden of sorts; a few railway sleepers and some sea-kale or sea-cabbage. Blotches of the cabbage spread out to the horizon. It is not pretty.

The railway sleepers tell a story of their own. Why are they there? Well, there was a plan to build a port there for speedy travel across to France. You can see their coast from the top of the shingle. There was at least one passenger line headed out here. But when the dream of the port died so did the railways. Suddenly, around 100 years ago, there were a large number of useless passenger carriages in the vicinity. The rail company gave them away to ex-employees, who used horses to drag them onto the shingle. There they became holiday retreats or fisher cottages. In time and through human interest in the area people built around the carriages to make larger and larger huts. Sunray is just one of many.  Now these places have electricity and water and some are available for rental. They have almost no insulation, but the climate is very dry and it hardly ever rains.Derek Jarman, the movie maker, who bought and built one a while back has inspired a lot of other incomers and put the place on the social as well as the nature lovers map.

Curiously, railways have not quite gone away. Above you see a miniature steam train on a line built as a folly by enthusiasts who now serve the tourists. Don't ride it for seaside views though. It mostly looks at gravel or back gardens.

Ah, the sea! Lovely to catch the waves breaking on the shore.

This sky captures something of the wildness and remoteness of the place, I hope. There is some sand on the beach at this low ebb. A wind blew up and there was a little taste of what the place might feel like in winter. However, despite this kind of view suggesting agoraphobic problems, there was more of a sense of claustrophobia about the place.  

My pictures mostly look towards the sea or the beach, making it seem a bit like a normal holiday coast. However, the picture below may give a sense of the desert that it is, at least officially.

Weird how distance and perspective can make a vast power station building look like a mere beach hut on the sea front.                          

So it was that we spent the very top of the years from solstice moment on 21st to midsummer's day staying at Dungeness. 

Don't imagine we lay there soaking up the sun for that time, though. It felt imperative to get away and stay away for long periods of each day. There was something very oppressive about the atmosphere.

Coming "home" in the evening was interesting too. I am not sure how well the picture shows how they have taken the old carriage and extended it in every direction. One wall of the carriage is gone while the other one and the windows remain leading into a dining room.

 

Conclusions

Dungeness is rather like a film set erected in a desert where the film  has been abandoned to the elements with the tumbleweed blowing through. I can almost say it is a life changing experience, but maybe that is only true if life itself is just a film set. It is certainly memorable. There are some who love it and escape from the world here, either for holidays or permanently. There is a research station for scientists, conservationists and people who study birds. One of our companions felt at peace there, but we were glad to leave the place behind. However, were very glad to have had the opportunity to explore this unique landscape for a few days at midsummer 2023. Who knows, with another few years of misrule in the UK everywhere will start to look this way.