Folkestone Then & Now Guestbook

Lee Podgson's photo of the WW2 bunker is, in fact, and Observation Post (OP) and is, indeed one of two. They are not on East Cliff, as such, but they lie just behind The Valiant Sailor, pub. I used to play on and inside them when first I came to live at the pub at the end of hostilities. The military were still 'in residence' at the time. There was also a battery of two (perhaps three) 9.2 inch ex-naval guns (probably removed from de-commissioned WW1 warships). The Capel Battery, as it was known stretched right along the clifftops to Capel village.

Close by, there was a Zig Zag path extending to The Warren. I used this to reach 'my garden' i.e.. The Warren which I had virtually to myself in those days. Barbed wire and mined areas were everywhere. Just behind the pub, we had a tea garden which had a lovely summerhouse which looked out over The Channel.

It might be of interest to learn that this summerhouse was used by Marconi in his experiments to send and receive cross-Channel 'wireless' messages. The pub then was part of an extensive farm with herds of cattle which used to graze the fields and hills around the area extending as far as the Folkestone/Canterbury Road. The farmer, Bill Aird, was suspicious of these new-fangled "radio waves". He believed they would be detrimental to his cows' milk yield and sent Marconi packing (and out of the history books!)

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