We drove past the mouth of the River Stour, hoping to see what was left of the Richborough power station. This had been demolished in March and there was predictably not much to see.
However, we did find the hamlet of Ebbsfleet, where Hengest and Horsa first arrived in Britain. Ebbsfleet is also thought to be the location the Battle of Wippedesfleot in c 466, the final of three battles in Kent where Hengest led the Anglo-Saxons against the Britons. After the bloodshed on both sides, fighting abated for some years.
The hamlet was on a peninsula of the Isle of Thanet – then still an island – until the middle ages. Ebbsfleet Lane marks the line of that peninsula. The surrounding land is the silted-up Wantsum Channel, which roughly followed the line of the Stour to Plucks Gutter and up to Reculver.
Driving across the once seascape, we continued down the Ramsgate Road and turned off to get to Richborough and its Roman fort. As it was evening, we were only allowed a brief visit before it closed. In the small museum, we learned that the fort was established when the Romans landed here in AD 43 and was later used by Saxons after the Roman retreat. The coastline is now some distance away.
