For Eric and Mary Laslett - Sandwich Kent.
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Sandwich is in the bottom
South East corner of Kent in the UK and there have been Lasletts living in, or
near, Sandwich for the nearly 500 years (see Laslett
history).
Sandwich Today is a quite backwater,
a small town consisting of old Tudor buildings, narrow winding streets, small
secret ally ways and old fashioned shops. With only the
new Pfizer buildings on it's outskirts (the buildings look like they should
be on the front cover of a pulp science fiction novel) representing the modern
world.
One of it's many secrets is the fact that 500 hundred years ago Sandwich had
a very different place in the world. It was a busy bustling port equal in importance
then, to
a port
the
size of
Liverpool is today. You could say that time and tide was particularly relevant
to the fate that overtook Sandwich. As the sea dumped ever increasing amounts
of sand onto Sandwich it's harbor silted up and prevented access to large ships
and preventing them from reaching the town. Many requests were made at the
time for money to do something
about the problem but enough money was never found and the ships bound for
Sandwich eventually had to go elsewhere. As the ships
got bigger so the river narrowed and Sandwich, like a nat in a polished piece
of amber, was fossilized and became a town frozen in time.
Today the sea is two miles away from the town of Sandwich and the famous
Royal St Georges golf course occupies
much of the sand dunes that now lie between the town and the sea. Sandwich
Bay is a long stretch of un spoilt sandy beach, some of which is a nature
reserve, and some open to nude sunbathers. The walk to Sandwich Bay over
the golf course is great opportunity to do a little bird watching.
Sandwich
Bay is
wild, long, windswept, beach with little
evidence
that there are humans living in the world. That is apart from the cooling
towers of the power station in the distance. If the tide is in on a windy
day the
sea can be quite invigoratingly rough with large breaking waves. Alternatively
when the tide is out, you can walk on seemingly for ever before you get
water
above your ankles.
open-sandwich.co.uk
open-sandwich.co.uk