Members and volunteers of the Trust visited Folkestone, the port where almost 10 million troops and ancillaries, such as nurses and Red Cross workers, passed through on their way to the Western Front. Before the war, Folkestone was a fashionable seaside town with a thriving tourist industry. As war was declared on 4th August 1914, it became a major port for soldiers bound for the Western Front, as well as for wounded soldiers returning home and refugees from countries such as Belgium. The station was located right in the harbour which meant that troops could transfer directly to leaving ships. Nearby Shorncliffe Army Camp was also used to billet troops before they were sent to war.
In 2009 the last train ran out of Folkestone Harbour. Since then it has been renovated to become an area for entertainment, but it still retains its links with the past. This includes poppies and wild flowers planted where the tracks used to run.
Today Folkestone is a place where remembrance sits amongst modern living. Art installations are peppered along the Leas, where the soldiers, billeted at Shorncliffe Army Camp, would have marched towards the harbour on their journey to war. At Mark Wallinger’s Folk Stones, 19,240 stones are laid to represent the number of men who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. We stopped to read out the names of those from Bexley who lost their lives on that day.
We continued allong the Leas, at the end of which the road steepens down toward the harbour. The soldiers were given the order to ‘step short’ in order to negotiate “The Slope”, as it was known then, safely. This is marked by the Short Step Memorial Arch. The Slope has been renamed the Road of Remembrance and the railings are decorated with thousands of knitted poppies.
We visited a number of memorials in Folkestone, which included the Gurkha memorial and the memorial to the animals who, without choice, gave so much, often their lives, to the efforts of the war.
We also visited the Battle of Britain Museum, where we remembered all those, including our local men, to whom, in Churchill’s words, “Never was so much owed by so many to so few”.
