WWLB024
Location: St. Augustines Cross, Ebbsfleet
Walk: 4m (6.25km). Long. No footway. Part cycle route.
Keeper: Jaqueline White
Status: Installed

Guide:
From the box located on the pines (023) head onwards through Acol, where Baroness d’Ortzy wrote The Nest of the Sparrowhawk, up the other side and past Cleve Court, situated on a sharp bend and reputedly haunted.

Go over the roundabout – if you turn left here you will come across the Spitfire Museum and café. Turn left at the Minster roundabout by Manston airport. As well as passenger services, Manston is used by the armed forces during times of conflict and by relief agencies such as Oxfam for flights of emergency aid.

Further along this road you will encounter a traffic island; turn right here through cauliflower country. At the end of the road you will come to a crossroads, where you should turn left into Cottington Road. Mind the sharp bend a little further on (where there used to be cherry orchards) and pass under the railway bridge. Immediately after the bridge, to your right, you will see the golf club – part of the modern day phenomenon of a great many people dragging trolleys of clubs, whilst wearing clothes in bad taste, in the pursuit of pushing a small ball into a hole – and, opposite this, a house that was part of the ‘celebrated Atkins lavender fields’. I have never seen this sight and I’m not sure when the lavender disappeared. Here you will find the letterbox, attached to the low wooden fence that partly encloses St. Augustines cross. In 2000 A.D. many pilgrims travelled here to celebrate the Christian faith.

There is a rumour that a member of the golf club passed on, which tells that the Saint’s memorial was erected by the owner of a café who wanted something to ‘pull in the punters’. I like this place as it is so unassuming, surrounded by the pastimes and travellers of today’s world and, in the summer, you can often see people enjoying their packed lunches. The site of St. Augustines landing also brings into focus Thanet’s former status as an island.
From here travel onwards to Cliffsend. Just as you enter, before you reach the church and village hall, there is a turning to your right, Foads Lane. At the end of the lane you can see the sea. Look to your right and see the towers of Richborough decommissioned power station, a huge decaying pile of modernity. Behind the grey stacks turn the white sails of a modern wind turbine.

Turn Ramsgate. On your right is a place to park, pause and picnic with views across the sea and a fenced area that housed a replica viking ship, recently sent for restoration.