Dover, Ramsgate, or other bathing towns on this coast. The cliffs, too, command the most delightful views, south-west, over the wide level of Romney Marsh, as far as Beachy Head, while seaward stands the town and harbour at our feet, beyond which are the Straits of Dover, skirted in the horizon by the coast of France. Folkestone has two churchesone of modern erection in the upper Sandgate-road, built in 1850 by the Earl of Radnor, who has endowed it with a stipend of £30 a-year. The Rev. W. Powell is the minister.

The parish church is an ancient structure. The chancel appears, by its architecture, to be of the early part of the twelfth century; and in

the north wall there is an ancient tomb, with buttresses at the sides, and a range of trefoils in open work beneath the lower mouldings of the arch; in compartments in front is a row of small mutilated figures, and upon the tomb lies the effigy of a knight in armour, with his head resting on a helmet, and his feet on a lion. For whom this monument was intended is unknown, but it is supposed to belong to some member of the Seagrave or Sandwich families. Against the east wall of the south aisle is a curious altar monument of variegated marble, (in memory of the Herdsons, once lords of the manor), which exhibits, under circular arched recesses, the figures of two knights kneeling on cushions,

THE HARBOUR HOUSE.

picwith their hands upraised.

Among other memorials is one to the Rev. William ho Langhorne, curate of Folke#stone, who died in 1772. The epitaph was written by his brother, the poet, and translator of " "Plutarch's Lives." A brass plate in the pavement of the nave records the name and character of Joan, mother of the celebrated Dr. Harvey, discoverer of the circulation of the blood. She died in 1605. Folkestone was the native place of this great and good man.

The Harbour House, represented in our engraving, was erected in 1843, for the use of the directors and officers of the Company. This

building is in the Venetian style of architecture, each elevation having a distinctive character of its own. It is built with red bricks, and a

CUSTOM-HOUSE AND QUAY, FOLKESTONE.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY VENABLES.

campanile tower, 100 feet high, projects from the principal façade, bearing an illuminated clock. On the
top is a gallery, from whence a magnificent view is obtained of the coast of France.

There are in Folkestone four or five places of worship for dissenters, all of which have attached
Sunday-schools; besides which there are several daily subscription-schools, and a good grammar-school.
It has also a town-hall and market-house, a new custom-house, a handsome building, which is repre-
sented above, a mechanics' institute, dispensary, several libraries, reading-rooms, &c., and four or five good
inns. As respects the last, however, none can compete with the Pavilion (page 298)-a magnificent
hotel, built a few years since by the railway company, and which far exceeds in size, splendour, and
convenience most of the hotels in our large towns, furnishing the traveller, too, with every luxury he can

desire, at prices much lower than at most English hotels. Recently it has been re-decorated and enlarged, under the proprietorship of Mr. Doridant, by the addition of a table d'hôte, saloon, coffee-room, billiardrooms, &c., the whole now furnishing accommodation for several hundred guests, besides private resident families.

The wonderful rapidity with which Folkestone has risen to popular favour has few parallels. Most of our readers may remember the period (a few years back) when the straggling cabins of a few poor fishermen were the only dwellings in the place. Now, all is changed. Every year adds its share of improvement, until the town, by its extent and beauty, will surprise even the most sanguine well-wishers. We can recollect the dark, narrow, steep streets, with no illuminating attraction of gas; and memory, as unpleasingly, reminds us of the vile, fetid exhalations that proceeded from the little harbour of refuge, which, although so termed in one sense, was a harbour for plague and pestilence in another. How changed the scene! Folkestone may be now called the abode of health, so fresh and invigorating is the sea-air, and so cleanly and neat is the A fine new street has recently been formed, leading from, and being a continuation of Tontine-street. No wonder, with such attrac tions, the lodging-houses in the town are thronged during the bathingThere is also much beautiful scenery to charm the eye. The Warren is a wild spot, small, but highly picturesque. The view from

town.

season.

the Lees is very fine, presenting, among other objects, Copt Point, alluded to in the late Dr. Mantell's last work.

The port of Folkestone, not less than the town, has been vastly improved by the South-Eastern Company. Even before they acquired possession of it in 1845, some efforts had been made by the construction of an arm at the end of the pier to arrest the progress of shingle, which here, as at Dover, constantly choked and filled up the harbour; but they were insufficient, and the evil, indeed, was increased thereby rather than diminished, for at neap-tides it could not be entered by vessels drawing more than nine or ten feet of water, and it was no unusual thing for a vessel to be neaped for days at the very entrance; thus not only uselessly detaining itself, but blocking up the channel so as to prevent the entrance of all other craft. The first step adopted by the company for arresting the shingle, was the carrying out from the southwest end of the arm of the pier of a grève formed with piles, and which gradually led to the formation of a breakwater, about fifty feet broad at top, forming an obtuse angle with the old arm of the pier. This at once stopped the further accumulation of shingle within the harbour, which was then at vast expense cleared of the gravel and mud long collected therein, and it has since remained clear. This breakwater, moreover, has been greatly improved by constructions of masonry intended to bind the work together; and at the same time great additions and improvements have been made both in the foundations and superstructures of the original piers. In fact, Folkestone Harbour, which was before a slough of gravel and mud, almost inaccessible except at half-spring or spring tides, has, owing to these improvements, become "a barbour having twenty feet of water considerably within the entrance, and is now capable of being entered by steamers three hours and a half after high water; while during neap-tides there are occasionally four or five feet of water in the entrance at low water, and immediately outside, sufficient for a steamer to take her passengers from -the pier-head and work herself clearly off." (See Mr. Swan's Report.) Another point of importance in connexion with this harbour, is the great ease with which it can be entered in bad weather, to which the captains of steamers bear almost individual testimony; and to this also, we may add the superior ease with which vessels may be swung, and the facility of backing out without turning round, so as to save