Adams's Descriptive Guide to the Watering-Places of England, and Companion to the Coast (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1848. Excerpt: ... range of cliffs, is formed by two convenient flights of stone steps, called Augusta Stairs and Jacob's Ladder. The lawny esplanade that has been formed before the crescents facing the sea enables a promenader to obtain an ample sea view, and the Downs being continually studded with shipping, the picture is generally extremely varied and animated. Some elegant churches in the florid gothic style, and numerous places of Dissenting worship, are to be met with in convenient situations about the town, and in Harbour-street is the new Town Hall, erected in 1839, with a capacious market underneath, teeming with every kind of comestible of various degrees of excellence. Boarding-houses, hotels, and dining-rooms are in the usual watering-place abundance, and the limits of expenditure may be adjusted to the depth of every purse. The bazaars and libraries provide evening amusement in abundance, through the agency of music and raffles; and though the books partake of the elder Minerva press school of composition, and the raffling is generally for articles of indifferent worth, the excitement attendant upon both is quite sufficient for sea-side denizens. To borrow a versified comment on a subject so little diversified in itself, it may be said--There's a library built on the brow of a hill, Or rather 'tis perched on the top of a rock; Old novels the shelves of its reading-room fill, Clocks, vases, et cetera, serve for its stock. And though these old novels belong to the past, The pliant subscribers keep reading them on, So these very old novels preserve to the last All the value of new when their novelty's gone. No one of course would think of stopping a week at Ramsgate without going to Pcgwell Bay, where the savoury shrimps and country-made brown bread and butter ar...