Town in Kent, England
Folkestone
Millions of First World War soldiers marched down one steep Folkestone street to the boats for France. Today the town is better known for art, seafood and a champagne bar on a harbour arm.
Key information
- County
- Kent
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- The Harbour Arm, the Leas clifftop promenade, the Channel Tunnel terminal and the Folkestone Triennial art festival
- Famous people
- William Harvey, St Eanswythe; Charles Dickens wrote part of Little Dorrit here
- Football clubs
- Folkestone Invicta
About Folkestone
The street that millions marched down
Between 1914 and 1918, Folkestone was the funnel through which much of the British Army reached the Western Front. Soldiers arrived by train at the harbour station, or marched down the steep Slope Road to the quayside, and boarded ships for Boulogne. It is often said that around ten million passed this way. The road is now called the Road of Remembrance. In 2014 the Step Short Memorial Arch was unveiled on the Leas, at the top of the road. Its name recalls the order given to soldiers to shorten their stride as they went down the steep Slope Road. The traffic ran both ways. Around 250,000 Belgian refugees came to Britain during the war, and roughly 64,000 of them arrived through Folkestone, often the first British soil they saw. A volunteer committee met them with food and advice. War also came to Folkestone itself. On 25 May 1917, German Gotha bombers attacked the town, killing 71 people in all. Sixty-one of them died in Tontine Street, where shoppers were queueing for a sale of potatoes.
A seaside resort built by an earl
Folkestone began as a fishing community around a small harbour known as the Stade. Its 7th-century patron, St Eanswythe, a Kentish princess, is said to have founded one of the earliest nunneries in England here. Her relics still rest in the parish church of St Mary and St Eanswythe. The town's second life began when the railway arrived in 1843. The South Eastern Railway bought the harbour and carried trains right to the water's edge, over the 19-arch Folkestone Viaduct. The Earl of Radnor, whose family owned much of the land, laid out the clifftop Leas as a grand promenade of hotels and villas. Edward VII, as Prince of Wales, was a regular visitor. To get visitors from the beach to the clifftop, the town built the Leas Lift in 1885. It runs on water: the weight of water pumped into the tank of the upper car pulls the lower one up the cliff. Dickens stayed in the town in the summer of 1855, writing part of Little Dorrit there.
The boat train and the golden age of crossing
For a century, the Folkestone to Boulogne crossing was a classic way to reach Paris. Boat trains ran down the steep branch line to the harbour, timed to meet the ferries. Passengers stepped from a railway carriage almost directly onto a ship. The harbour itself is older than the railway. Thomas Telford worked on it in 1809. Its long curved Harbour Arm, once the departure point for the ferries, reopened to the public in 2015. Today it is a seafront promenade with street-food stalls and a lighthouse that doubles as a champagne bar. The ferries stopped for good in 2000, and the Channel Tunnel terminal at nearby Cheriton, open since 1994, took over the crossing trade. Trains now carry cars and lorries under the sea in around 35 minutes.
The seaside town that became a gallery
After the ferries left, the town needed a new story. Part of the answer was art. The Old High Street, a cobbled slope down to the harbour, became the Creative Quarter, its painted houses filled with studios and shops. In 2008 came the first Folkestone Triennial, an exhibition of art scattered across the town's streets, beaches and cliffs. Several works stayed and form the permanent Folkestone Artworks collection, including Tracey Emin's bronze Baby Things. Cornelia Parker's Folkestone Mermaid sits on a rock at Sunny Sands beach, overlooking the sea. The result is a town where a walk to the beach can pass a sculpture, a bookshop and a fishmonger within a few minutes.
Whelks, fish and the harbour stalls
Folkestone's food is firmly rooted in the sea. Fishing boats still work from the harbour, and the fish market sells the catch fresh. Cockles, whelks and prawns come in pots from seafront stalls, and fish and chips on the front is a local ritual. The Harbour Arm has made the town a destination for street food, oysters and a glass of fizz beside the lighthouse. Sunny Sands, the town's sandy beach at low tide, is a good place to eat it, with France sometimes visible on a clear day.
The man who mapped the blood
Folkestone's most important son was born here in 1578. William Harvey, the son of a local yeoman, became a physician to James I and Charles I. In 1628 he published his revolutionary account of how blood is pumped by the heart and circulates around the body. It overturned more than a thousand years of medical teaching. His statue stands on the Leas, looking out over the town where he was born. Folkestone's football club is Folkestone Invicta, whose name is the Latin for "unconquered" and echoes the white horse symbol of Kent.