is a
Town in
Kent ,
England . It lies on the
English Channel eight miles north-east of
Dover . It is a small fishing community situated between Dover and the Isle of Thanet. Closely associated with Deal are the villages of Kingsdown and
Walmer .
The town lies at the site where
Julius Caesar first arrived in
Britain (best guess by historians), and was named as one of the
Cinque Ports in
1278 . The town grew to become for a while the busiest
Port in England; today it enjoys the reputation of being a quiet
Seaside Resort , its quaint streets and houses the only reminder of its fascinating history. The coast of
France is approximately twenty-five miles from the town, and is visible on clear days.
Its finest building is the
Tudor Deal Castle , commissioned by King
Henry VIII and designed with an attractive
Rose floor plan.
During the
19th Century ,
Charles Dickens was to comment on the character of the East Kent boatmen, and on one of his visits to Deal (later used for an episode in
Bleak House ) he wrote:
“These are among the bravest and most skilful mariners that exist. Let a gale rise and swell into a storm, and let a sea run that might appal the stoutest heart that ever beat; let the light ships on the sands throw up a rocket in the darkness of the night; or let them hear through the angry roar the signal guns of a ship in distress, and these men spring up with activity so dauntless, so valiant and heroic, that the world cannot surpass it.... For this and the recollection of their comrades, whom we have known, whom the raging sea has engulfed before their children’s eyes in such brave efforts whom the secret sand has buried, let us hold the boatmen in our love and honour, and be tender of the fame they well deserved”
Earlier descriptions of Deal were much less favourable, with the town notorious in the
17th Century as a location for smugglers.
Daniel Defoe wrote of the town:
:''“If I had any satire left to write,
:''“Could I with suited spleen indite,
:''“My verse should blast that fatal town,
:''“And drown’d sailors’ widows pull it down;
:''“No footsteps of it should appear,
:''“And ships no more cast anchor there.
:''“The barbarous hated name of Deal shou’d die,
:''“Or be a term of infamy;
:''“And till that’s done, the town will stand
:''“A just reproach to all the land”'
Diarist
Samuel Pepys recorded several visits to the town, being moved on
30th April 1660 {Link without Title} to describe it as "pitiful".
The proximity of Deal's shoreline to the notorious
Goodwin Sands has made its coastal waters a source of both shelter and danger through the history of sea travel in British waters. The
Downs , the water between the town and the sands provides a naturally sheltered
Anchorage . This allowed the town to become a significant shipping and (due to the proximity to
Chatham Dockyard ) military port in past centuries despite the absence of a
Harbour , with transit of goods and people from ship to shore conducted using smaller
Tender craft. The anchorage is still used today by international and regional
Shipping , though on a scale far smaller than at other times in the past (some historical accounts report hundreds of ships being visible from the beach).
By the time Dickens came to Deal it had been largely forgotten how the government of 1784, under Prime Minister
William Pitt The Younger (who was staying at nearby
Walmer Castle , and was later to be appointed
Lord Warden Of The Cinque Ports in
1792 ), ensured that the Deal boats were all set ablaze, suspecting some of the Deal
Lugger s of being engaged in smuggling. Pitt had awaited an opportunity that January, when the boats were all 'hoved up' on the beach on account of bad weather, to send a regiment of soldiers to smash and burn them. A naval
Cutter was positioned offshore to prevent any of the boatmen escaping.
The boatmen's ancestors had the right, under charter, to freely import goods in return for their services as
Cinque Port men in providing what had been long recognised as the sole naval defence of the realm. These men continued to risk their lives and their boats, in saving the lives of shipwreck victims.
The irrepressible spirit of the Deal boatmen remained undaunted by these events throughout the
Napoleonic Wars , and they continued to assert their hard-earned right to trade.
From these activities news of the events unfolding in France would reach England quickly and regularly, with about 400 men making a living of off Deal beach at that time. The war only made the boatmen’s efforts more profitable, so that afterwards the Government immediately turned a part of its naval
Blockade into a coastal blockade, which lasted from 1818 to 1831.
Deal had a naval shipyard which provided Deal with much of its trade. On the site of the yard there is now a building originally used as a semaphore tower, and later used as a coastguard house, then as a
Time Ball Tower , which it remains today, and as a museum. Besides this and the
Deal Maritime Museum , there is no museum of the town's history yet, though a campaign to start one is ongoing - Deal's history is told at
Dover Museum instead.
The first home of the
Royal Marines in Kent was established at
Chatham in 1755. Because of its proximity to the continent and the fact that it possessed a thriving naval dockyard, Deal has been closely associated with the corps ever since its foundation. Records from the old Navy yard at Deal exist from 1658 and show that Marines from Chatham and Woolwich were on duty in Deal, and quartered in the town, until the Deal depot was established in 1861.
Deal Barracks has become known over its long history as the Royal Marine School of Music, the barracks at
Walmer consisting of the North, East and South (or Cavalry) barracks, and all were constructed shortly after the outbreak of the French revolution.
Part of the South barracks was used from 1815 as the quarters for the 'blockade men', drafted against a threat of local smuggling. The South barracks became a coastguard station thereafter, and this duty continued until 1840.
It was the East barracks which accommodated the School of Music, until the Royal Naval School of Music was formed at Plymouth in 1903, but which moved to Deal in 1930, replacing the original depot band formed in 1891. Thus the institution became known as the Royal Marine School of Music in 1950.
During 1940, at St Margarets Bay, close to Deal, the Royal Marines Siege Regiment came into being and manned cross-channel guns for most of the remainder of the war.
On the 22nd September, 1989, a
Bomb planted by the
IRA killed ten bandsmen and injured a further 22.
On the evening of March 26, 1996, the Deal populous were privy to a special ceremony, the 'beating of the retreat', coming from the South barracks, as the Marines were commanded to vacate their ancient Kent depot and move to new quarters at
Portsmouth .
Over two thousand ships are believed to have been wrecked on the Goodwin Sands, and the masts of several wrecks are visible from the shore at low tide.
During
World War I , Deal had two lifeboats, the ''Charles Dibden'' and the ''Frances Forbes Barton''; William Stanton was coxswain of the latter, which was originally, in 1897, the legacy of a Miss Webster to the boatmen of
Broadstairs . It is recorded as having remained at that station until 1912, when the Broadstairs
RNLI station closed, during which time it had been taken out on 77 launches and saved 115 lives, by far the most effective of the RNLI craft stationed there.
Solomon Holbourn, Coxswain of the ''
Mary White '' of
Broadstairs had an aunt, Sophia who married at
Folkestone in 1813 to William Stevenson. His eldest son William became a mariner and boatman, and married an Elizabeth Wellard in 1839 at St Peters, Broadstairs. One of their children, born in 1848, was named after his father William, but in his adult life was better known as Bill ‘Floaty’ Stevenson, and as such as a member of the ''Frances Forbes Barton'' lifeboat crew.
The ''Charles Dibden'' of 1907~31 saved 443 lives at sea. During the service of R. Roberts as
Coxswain , the Deal lifeboatmen included F. Roberts, ‘Bonny’ Will Adams, Henry and William Marsh, (the latter a Deal pilot), F Hanner (2nd Coxswain), and Henry Holbourn, nephew of Henry Marsh.
Deal's last lifeboat, stationed at the
RNLI boathouse on
Walmer Green, was the Hampshire Rose. It was retired from service in
1990 and replaced with a much smaller inshore rescue dingy.
The seafront at Deal has been adorned with three separate
Pier s in the town's history. The first, built in
1838 , was designed by
Sir John Rennie . After its wooden structure was destroyed in an
1857 gale, it was replaced by an iron pier in
1864 . A popular pleasure pier, it survived until the
Second World War , when it was struck and severely damaged by a torpedoed Dutch ship, the ''Nora'', in January
1940 . This was not the first time the pier had been hit by shipping, with previous impacts in
1873 and
1884 necessitating extensive repairs.
The present pier was opened in
1954 by
Prince Phillip . Constructed predominantly from
Concrete -clad
Steel , it is 1026ft (311m) in length (the same length, as a notice announces, as the
RMS Titanic !), and ends in a three-tiered pier-head, featuring a cafe, bar, lounge, and fishing decks. The lowest of the three tiers is underwater at all but the lowest part of the tidal range, and has become disused. The pier is a popular
Sport Fishing venue.
Deal's current pier is the last remaining fully-intact leisure pier in
Kent . Its structure was extensively refurbished and repaired in
1997 , with work including the replacement of much of the concrete cladding on the pier's main piles.
- Dickens, who had visited the town (see Notable References To Deal ), had Richard Carstone garrisoned here in chapter XLV of '' Bleak House '', so that Woodcourt and Esther's paths can cross when Woodcourt's ship happens to anchor in the Downs at the same time as Esther and Ada are visiting Richard:
::At last we came into the narrow streets of Deal, and very gloomy they were upon a raw misty morning. The long flat beach, with its little irregular houses, wooden and brick, and its litter of capstans, and great boats, and sheds, and bare upright poles with tackle and blocks, and loose gravelly waste places overgrown with grass and weeds, wore as dull an appearance as any place I ever saw. The sea was heaving under a thick white fog; and nothing else was moving but a few early ropemakers, who, with the yarn twisted round their bodies, looked as if, tired of their present state of existence, they were spinning themselves into cordage.
::But when we got into a warm room in an excellent hotel and sat down, comfortably washed and dressed, to an early breakfast (for it was too late to think of going to bed), Deal began to look more cheerful. Our little room was like a ship's cabin, and that delighted Charley very much. Then the fog began to rise like a curtain, and numbers of ships that we had had no idea were near appeared. I don't know how many sail the waiter told us were then lying in the
Downs . Some of these vessels were of grand size—one was a large
Indiaman just come home; and when the sun shone through the clouds, making silvery pools in the dark sea, the way in which these ships brightened, and shadowed, and changed, amid a bustle of boats pulling off from the shore to them and from them to the shore, and a general life and motion in themselves and everything around them, was most beautiful.
::The large Indiaman was our great attraction because she had come into the downs in the night. She was surrounded by boats, and we said how glad the people on board of her must be to come ashore. Charley was curious, too, about the voyage, and about the heat in India, and the serpents and the tigers; and as she picked up such information much faster than grammar, I told her what I knew on those points. I told her, too, how people in such voyages were sometimes wrecked and cast on rocks, where they were saved by the intrepidity and humanity of one man. And Charley asking how that could be, I told her how we knew at home of such a case.
::I had thought of sending Richard a note saying I was there, but it seemed so much better to go to him without preparation. As he lived in barracks I was a little doubtful whether this was feasible, but we went out to reconnoitre. Peeping in at the gate of the barrack-yard, we found everything very quiet at that time in the morning, and I asked a sergeant standing on the guardhouse-steps where he lived. He sent a man before to show me, who went up some bare stairs, and knocked with his knuckles at a door, and left us……….
::I said I would return to the hotel and wait until he joined me there, so he threw a cloak over his shoulders and saw me to the gate, and Charley and I went back along the beach.
::There was a concourse of people in one spot, surrounding some naval officers who were landing from a boat, and pressing about them with unusual interest. I said to Charley this would be one of the great Indiaman's boats now, and we stopped to look.
::The gentlemen came slowly up from the waterside, speaking good-humouredly to each other and to the people around and glancing about them as if they were glad to be in England again. "Charley, Charley," said I, "come away!" And I hurried on so swiftly that my little maid was surprised.
::It was not until we were shut up in our cabin-room and I had had time to take breath that I began to think why I had made such haste. In one of the sunburnt faces I had recognized Mr. Allan Woodcourt, and I had been afraid of his recognizing me. I had been unwilling that he should see my altered looks. I had been taken by surprise, and my courage had quite failed me.
- In Jane Austen 's '' Persuasion '', chapter 8, the town is mentioned as the only place where Admiral Croft's wife Sophia Croft was ever ill, as it was the only place she was ever separated from him, whilst he was patrolling the North Sea :
::"And I do assure you, ma'am," pursued Mrs Croft, "that nothing can exceed the accommodations of a man-of-war; I speak, you know, of the higher rates. When you come to a frigate, of course, you are more confined; though any reasonable woman may be perfectly happy in one of them; and I can safely say, that the happiest part of my life has been spent on board a ship. While we were together, you know, there was nothing to be feared. Thank God! I have always been blessed with excellent health, and no climate disagrees with me. A little disordered always the first twenty-four hours of going to sea, but never knew what sickness was afterwards. ; but as long as we could be together, nothing ever ailed me, and I never met with the smallest inconvenience."
::"Aye, to be sure. Yes, indeed, oh yes! I am quite of your opinion, Mrs Croft," was Mrs Musgrove's hearty answer. "There is nothing so bad as a separation.
- A renamed Deal served as the setting for the William Horwood book, '' The Boy With No Shoes '' (ISBN 0755313186).
- It is also the setting for David Donachie's book ''A Hanging Matter'' (ISBN 033032862X) , a murder and nautical mystery.
- Deal also features briefly in H. G. Wells '' The War Of The Worlds ''.
Comedian
Norman Wisdom and actors
William Hartnell and
Charles Hawtrey all lived in Deal.
