14 RAMBLES ROUND FOLKESTONE. 



astonishment I once experienced when, after a few 

 hours' ramble among the Buckinghamshire chalk 

 hills, I turned a corner of the road and suddenly 

 found myself on tke edge of the escarpment, the flat 

 plain lying three or four hundred feet below me, and 

 stretching away for miles in the distance. So again, 

 after climbing up Wansfell near Ambleside for 1500 

 feet one July evening, did an exclamation of wonder 

 burst from my companion on seeing the grand low- 

 land on the other side. 



But revenons nos moutons, we are in the suburb of 

 Foord and not in Westmoreland. And there in 

 front of us, prominently outlined against the clear 

 sky stands the hill up which we intend to wend our 

 way. We go on through the rapidly growing hamlet, 

 and past the old sham ruins the destruction of 

 which has already commenced. Inside, so the old 

 guide books tell us, a few years ago, was a mineral 

 spring, even dignified as chalybeate, but no trace of 

 it can be detected now. On, past the new church 

 of St. John Baptist, missing the interesting old 

 cottages on the right which have long since given 

 place to brick and Folkestone cement ; the very 

 stream itself which bordered the road a little further 

 on has been diverted, I suppose because of the pro- 

 jected street through the old Pavilion Gardens. On 

 the left here is the only spot in the neighbourhood 

 where the Sand Martins used to build, perhaps I 

 ought to say attempted to build, for I question whether 

 they were ever allowed to succeed, so strong is the 

 juvenile desire for ornithological research. But here 

 again the pickaxe and shovel are at work, rapidly 

 removing temptation out of the Avay of the birds. 



