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Samuel Taylor Coleridge
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Here are a few short extracts from "Wish You Were Here", a book by Allan Clayson about Coleridge's holidays in Ramsgate from 1819-1833. I have purposely only included direct references to properties and locations in the Eastcliff. (N. B. The punctuation and grammar, whilst unconventional, are as they appear in the publication.)
"Samuel Taylor Coleridge is to Ramsgate what Charles Dickens is to Broadstairs. Over a period of fourteen years in each case these two major figures in English literature chose to spend their holidays at the two celebrated Thanet resorts, Coleridge from 1819 to 1833 and Dickens from 1837 to 1851. A rough calculation suggests that the overall length of the holidays of each was more or less the same - just over 12 months in all. It is in the circumstances surprising that Ramsgate, unlike its more entrepreneurial neighbour, has failed entirely, as far as one can tell, to exploit the potential inherent in the situation.
At various times Coleridge lived at No. 3 Wellington Crescent, No. 7, No. 28 and No. 29, at right angles to the Crescent in Plains of Waterloo1 at No. 1, No. 8 and No. 9 and finally at right angles to Plains at Bellevue Place (now Road) No. 4. These are the Ramsgate addresses he gives at the head of his correspondence; he must have stayed elsewhere; but significantly I feel, the recorded addresses are all within a radius of about a hundred yards, and provide an evocative literary pilgrimage in a town which still preserves much of its Regency and late Georgian character.
There are no blue plaques as yet in the Crescent or in the nearby Plains of Waterloo on Ramsgate's East Cliff, but some recognition of the most loyal of Ramsgate's many notable visitors is long overdue. If this book can establish what Ramsgate meant to Coleridge and what Coleridge should mean to Ramsgate it will achieve its limited purpose.
A.C
Wellington Crescent, Ramsgate, 2001
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. . . . . . . . Coleridge in his most reckless days had been a prodigious drinker of brandy, wine and ale. . . . . .
Of Ramsgate beer he had as bad an opinion, though his complaint in his Notebook in 1823 may well have been the result of over-indulgence the night before:
"Not well -- confused & with a sense of fullness in the head, so that I declined bathing. Q(uer)y. The villainous Creature, Ramsgate Table Beer?" . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . . There is no record of where Coleridge stayed in 1819, though the 'Lime Grove' referred to . . . . . . . . might suggest Bellevue Place, but in 1821 it is a different story. He writes with great enthusiasm to his London friend and admirer, Thomas Allsop:
"We have a noble House -- The situation the very best in all Ramsgate -- 7 Wellington Crescent, East Cliff, Ramsgate -- and we or rather Mrs G's voice and manners procured it 'shamefull cheap' for the size & accomodation."
The great sweep of Wellington Crescent, on Ramsgate's East Cliff, was a new development in 1821. . . . . . . . .Bisecting the Crescent, and running back towards King Street and the town in a dog-leg, was another development of about the same time - the Plains of Waterloo - though the houses in this street were more modest. Coleridge and the Gillmans passed all their holidays bar one in Wellington Crescent or Plains of Waterloo.Bellevue Place, now Bellevue Road, the only other street in which they are recorded as having stayed, branched off the Plains at a right angle, away from the town and up a hill to Mount Albion house, home of Lady Augusta Murray, Countess D'Ameland, abandoned wife of the Royal Duke of Sussex, younger brother of George IV and William IV.
Coleridge could be heavily ironic, and had a sharp eye for the incongruous, which he detected in many aspects of Ramsgate life. Here he is mocking a wooden statue of the Duke of Wellington, erected at the expense of another of the Crescent speculators, a smith named Underdown, in an item of local news for Gillman in 1825:
"The celebrated Lignum Vitae, that imperial Duplicate of his Grace of Wellington, which used to scare the Sea-Gulls (N.B. not the She-gulls) from the Crescent Garden, has disappeared from it's Pediment - whether from any dark Conspiracy, of which young Napoleon is at the bottom, can be only conjectured. Sufficient that it is gone! Mr Underwood (sic), to whose Taste and Munificence the Crescent & the Plains of Waterloo owed this Chef d'oevre of Heroiglyphic (sic) Carpentry, is himself turned wood at the loss..... - and the Ramsgate Gibbons, who chipped it, talks (I hear)....about....what things Envy may drive Artists to perpetrate.
According to local legend the oak carving was demolished by a drunken Irishman as a protest against the Duke's High Tory views. Vandalism in the area is nothing new.
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. . . . . . . . That year, 1824, they began their holiday at 1 Plains of Waterloo . . . . . . .
"Miller has disappointed us in the Front-House -- or rather Mrs G. in her good nature has allowed him to do so. . . . . . . . "
However, before the end of the holiday Miller had somewhat atoned from his earlier fall from grace and installed them in 29 Wellington Crescent.
"We have shifted to the Corner House of the Colonnade, No. 29 -- that end of Wellington Crescent, next to Albion Place -- When the wind is South or South West, and strong, it requires a strong man to shut the Door again when opened, & the house is taken by storm -- likewise, the chimneys smoke on occasions --. Nathless(sic), it is roomier, pleasanter, & above all, better bedded. Mrs G. has it for a guinea a week"
Miller saw to the chimneys, much to Coleridge's approval:
I shall speak well of the Ramsgate Masons -- for last week to cure the intolerable Smoking, in parlour, kitchen and drawing room Mr Miller had the chimneys raised two feet and a half.
From 29 Wellington Crescent they had a bird's-eye view of the harbour, and on 23rd November, 1824, Coleridge was swept up in the action surrounding a violent storm, including a spectacular shipwreck on the Goodwins. Coleridge provided a running commentary of the events he witnessed, and from 29 Wellington Crescent he writes almost breathlessly to Gillman, in a journal-letter interrupted from time to time as he collected first-hand evidence:. . . . . . . . .
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. . . . . . . .There was much rivalry at the time between the two premier Thanet resorts(Ramsgate & Margate) over the quality of the company that frequented each, though by the first decade of the 19th Century 'fashionables' were favouring Ramsgate. Yet as early as 1779 William Cowper . . . . . . . . . contrasted . . . . . . . . . the quality resorting to Margate and Ramsgate:
"But you think Margate more lively. So is a Cheshire cheese full of mites more lively than a sound one; but that very livliness only proves its rottenness. I remember, too, that Margate, though full of company, was generally filled with such company, as people who were nice in their choice of company, were rather fearful of keeping company with. The hoy went to London every week, loaded with mackerel and herrings, and returned loaded with company. The cheapness of the conveyance made it equally commodious for dead fish and Lively company. So perhaps your solitude at Ramsgate may turn out another advantage; at least I should think it one."
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. . . . . . . .On the holiday of 1827 it is unclear where everyone stayed, though it would appear that Coleridge had a room at 28 Wellington Crescent
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1828. . . . . . . .Once again Stuart (Daniel - a friend) subsidised Coleridge's holiday, and the invalid was duly installed, for the first time, at 9 Plains of Waterloo -- not for Coleridge an ideal property, as he told Gillman:
The House is all, we want -- and 'enjoys' a fractional view of the Sea, which from the poke of the Neck neccessary thereto is more, than I can pretend to do. -- The rooms and beds are comfortable enough. -- The Crescent has not a single empty house; yet the Natives speak of having had but a so so Season.
Their usual house in the Plains, No.8, seems to have been occupied by Miss Harding who, as Coleridge informs Gillman, 'lives next door -- and is chatty, as usual'. Staying in one or other of the houses was a young girl, Miss Bird, and where young girls were concerned Coleridge was something of a tease.
"Poor Miss Bird has been forced to veil one of her Brilliants with a poultice -- I tell her, it will be suspected that she looks forward to being married to a Mr hog as she has manifestly a sty in her eye. She is good-natured, innocent and well-disposed girl."
She must have been to have gone along with this outrageous pun.
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. . . . . . . .Amazingly, in 1833 he enjoyed an Indian summer, and in the month of July returned to Ramsgate, for the last time as it happened. He had one of his most active social seasons, and his letters for the period were as lively as ever, as was his table talk.
On this holiday he preceded Mrs Gillman to the seaside, and surprised Gillman with his son Henry on the Pier, for they were not expecting him until the next day with the rest of the party.Gillman had come down ahead of the others for his health, and he was, in fact, more of an invalid than Coleridge on this holiday. Coleridge's attitude was positive, and he quickly settled down into what he called 'the very best Lodgings, to my taste, that I have ever seen in Ramsgate - and only a guinea and a half a week . . No.4 Belle vue' -- then Belle Vue place, now Belle View Road. However he may only have said this out of courtesy to his hosts, for as we have read ina Ramsgate guidebook of 1833 'no rooms possessing any respectable appearance or comfort, can be had in any part of the town at less than two guineas a week'.
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. . . . . . . ."As I was crawling up the hill towards Belle Vue, where we lodge, a stately old Lady, certainly not less than 80, was coming down -- I was making way to give her the Wall -- when with unexpected alacrity of movement she made the outward Curve, & with grave solemnity said -- No, Sir! You are the far Elder. It is my Duty to make way for the Aged."
. . . . . . . .Less than a year later, on 25 July, 1834, he succumbed at last to the heart disease that had racked his frame for years.
Notes: 1 The numbering of the houses in Plains of Waterloo does not correspond with today's numbering. It is unclear which houses were No.s 1, 8 & 9.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, text of the 1817 version
Kubla Khan
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Ramsgate's other illustrious residents/visitors
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Princess Victoria - was a frequent visitor before she became Queen and stayed at Albion House.
Wilkie Collins - author of The Moonstone and The Woman in White stayed at Plains of Waterloo and also Wellington Crescent
Karl Marx - stayed in Abbots Hill, Plains of Waterloo and with his daughter in Artillery Road.
Elizabeth Fry - the prison reformer, who appears on the £5 note, was moved by her family to Arklow House. Mount Albion and died there in 1845. (ref. "The Gurneys of Earlham")
Dr John Collis Brown - who invented the medicine Chlorodyne, lived and died in Victoria Road.
Other Famous People from Thanet (Wikipedia)
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