Not Quite What It Seems

Looking out to sea from Whitstable Harbour.

It's a fact!

Like all the Kentish seaside towns, Whitstable has a history of smuggling but with a twist. Along with the usual tobacco, lace and brandy, it seems that during the Napoleonic Wars, prisoners of war were smuggled back to France through Whitstable from the surrounding areas and London.

Many houses in the area still have secret windows and passages used for the smuggling of goods and people. When a house was demolished in Castle Road in the 1940s a massive number of manacles were found hidden beneath the floorboards.

Whitstable’s many alleyways provided easy access to the beach as well as to many of the houses and pubs. Most are either named after the pubs or shipyards connected to them, and some fun ones such as Squeeze Gut Alley, so named after a continuously pranked, overweight policeman who could never chase the pranksters down it for fear of getting stuck.