#kent estuary

[richs-pics]

Railway bridge, Arnside

[stargoose-photo]

Grain, Kent, England, August 2024.

[aisphotostuff]

Flock of Starling on the Marsh on the Swale Estuary Kent. by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: A small group of starlings is called a chattering, congregation, cloud, constellation, or other term. Starlings are social and noisy birds that spend much of the year in flocks

[petroldentist]

River Medway in Rochester, 2024

[aimeedaisies]

The Princess Royal’s Official Engagements in September 2024

01/09 unofficial With Sir Tim Attended a church service at Crathie Kirk. ⛪️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

10/09 As Colonel-in-Chief, visited The King's Royal Hussars at Aliwal Barracks in Tidworth, Wiltshire. 🪖

Sir Tim represented Princess Anne at a Service of Thanksgiving for Sir Clive Johnstone (National President of the Royal British Legion) which was held at St. Margaret's Church in Westminster, London. 🌹

11/09 Visited Estuary Services Limited and named a Pilot Vessel in Ramsgate Royal Harbour, followed by a Reception at Royal Temple Yacht Club. 🍾🚤

As Patron of the English Rural Housing Association, opened a new development at Carpenters Yard in Shepherdswell near Dover, Kent. 🌳🏠

12/09 As Patron of Citizens Advice Scotland, visited Penicuik Citizens Advice Bureau. ⚖️

As Patron of the International Sheep Dog Society, attended the International Sheep Dog Trials at Syde Farm in Lanarkshire. 🐑🐕

Unofficial Sir Tim attended the launch of the Bradford UK City of Culture 2025 🏙️

13/09 Attended the Southampton International Boat Show. 🚤

As Patron of the National Museum of the Royal Navy, visited the Fleet Air Arm Museum at Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton in Ilchester, to mark its 60th anniversary. ✈️⚓️

As Patron of Save the Children UK, attended a Concert at Cheap Street Church in Sherborne, to mark 30 years of support from the Cambridge Choral Scholars. 🎶

16/09 As President of Victim Support, visited the Bristol Service at St Werburghs Community Centre, to mark its 50th anniversary. 🤝

As Patron of Gloucestershire Rugby Football Union, attended the Annual Volunteer Awards Reception at Lockleaze Sports Centre in Bristol. 🏉

17/09 As Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Logistic Corps, visited the Joint Helicopter Support Squadron at A Hangar in Royal Air Force Benson. 🚁

As Patron of the National Transport Trust, attended the Annual Awards Ceremony at Fawley Hill Museum, in Henley-on-Thames. 🏆

As Royal Patron of the National Coastwatch Institution, attended a 30th anniversary reception at the Corporation of Trinity House. 🍾

18/09 As President of the UK Fashion and Textile Association, visited ApparelTASKER Sustainable Garment Manufacturer in London. 👕👖

20/09 As Patron of the Beef Shorthorn Cattle Society, attended a Members' Development Day at Podehole Farm in Thorney. 🐮

21/09 Unofficial With Sir Tim Departed from Kemble Airfield and arrived at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. ✈️🇳🇱

With Sir Tim Attended a Reception at the Airborne Museum Hartenstein, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Arnhem. 🪂

22/09 With Sir Tim As President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, attended the Annual Service of Commemoration at Oosterbeek Airborne Cemetery. 🪦🌹

With Sir Tim Visited the house of “the Angel of Arnhem” in Oosterbeek. 🏠👼🏻

Unofficial With Sir Tim, departed from Amsterdam Airport Schiphol and arrived back at Kemble Airfield. ✈️🇬🇧

24/09 As President of the Scotch Chef’s Club, visited Hugh Black and Sons Limited in Stirling. 🥩🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

As Patron of the Royal Highland Education Trust, attended a Food and Farming Day at Solsgirth Home Farm in Dollar. 🎓🚜

As Patron of Opportunity International United Kingdom, held a Dinner at St James’s Palace. 🌍 🍽️

25/09 On behalf of The King, held an Investiture at Windsor Castle in the morning and afternoon.

26/09 As President of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, inaugurated the Loos British Cemetery extension and attended a Reburial Service of Unknown Soldiers. 🇬🇧🇫🇷🪦

Attended a Reception at the Town Hall, Place de la République in Loos-en-Gohelle, France. 🇫🇷🥂

As Patron of Sense International, attended a Dinner at Church House, Westminster, to mark the 30th anniversary of the charity. 🦯🦻🎂

27/09 Opened Hull Trinity House Academy in Hull, East Yorkshire. 🏫

As Patron of the Sailors’ Children’s Society, presented awards at the “Anchor of Celebration” ceremony at Hull Trinity House. 🏆⚓️

As Patron of the Spinal Injuries Association, attended a 50th anniversary reception at SIA House in Milton Keynes. 🦽🎂

30/09 With Sir Tim As Patron of the Minchinhampton Centre for the Elderly, visited Horsfall House, to mark its 30th Anniversary. 🏡🎂

As Colonel-in-Chief of The Royal Logistic Corps, visited the Gurkha Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Support Battalion to mark the redesignation of 170 Headquarters Squadron at Imjin Barracks. 🪖

Total official engagements for Anne in September: 33

2024 total so far: 313

Total official engagements accompanied/represented by Tim in September: 5

2024 total so far: 86

FYl - due to certain royal family members being off ill/in recovery I won't be posting everyone's engagement counts out of respect, I am continuing to count them and release the totals at the end of the year.

[ginandoldlace]

At 120 square miles, Morecambe Bay is the UK’s largest expanse of intertidal mudflats and sand.

Almost the whole coast of the bay belongs to Lancashire

However, Westmorland at its southernmost reaches the bay at the River Kent estuary, around Arnside, splitting Lancashire into its two parts: south of the sands and north of the sands.

[womblegrinch]

Matthew Alexander (b.1953) - Sunrise on the Swale, near Whistable

Oil on canvas. 18 x 24 inches, 45.7 x 61 cm.

Part of a selling exhibition at Messum's, St James's, London 8 May - 31 May 2024.

The Swale is a tidal channel of the Thames estuary that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the rest of Kent.

[sleepingswift85]

#SunsetGrab captures looking about around the Downs and looking out to the Medway estuary at Stockbury near Sittingbourne, Kent - 26.01.24 💎 (5 takes) 🌅

[stephensmithuk]

The Five Orange Pips

ACD likes a shipwreck, doesn't he?

I will leave discussions about the Ku Klux Klan to those with more knowledge on the subject.

A mendicant is someone who generally takes a vow of poverty and relies on charity to survive - such as a wandering preacher. In Christianity, this was often done in deliberate imitation of the Apostles, who were told to rely on others (and by extension God) for their needs. Mendicants having a luxurious club would be a tad hypocritical.

We have two barques referenced here. To repeat my comment from "The Gloria Scott": a bark - or barque - is a type of sailing ship with three or more masts - the first two masts have square sails, the one at the back had them aligned with the hull. They were fast ships that needed a relatively small crew.

The UK's position on the Gulf Stream may keep the place from getting very cold in winter, but it also leaves us open to big storms.

Pince-nez glasses were very popular in this time period.

The area around Horsham does indeed have pretty clay-ey soil that's good for growing crops.

Horsham is a market and commuter town 31 miles from London.

Cheating at cards was apparently the worst thing a gentleman could do. In Ian Fleming's novels, two of the villains are immediately clearly wrong-uns as they're rich guys who feel the need to cheat.

Being "sent to Coventry" is a British expression for being ostracised. Joseph appears to have sent himself to the West Midlands town.

Pondicherry, now called Puducherry, was in fact a French enclave on the south-eastern coast of India and was not in fact transferred to Indian control until 1954.

"London E." was one of the postal divisions of the city at the time - it remains as the E postcode area, split into 22 districts, including two specially for Natwest and News International. Yep, Murdoch has his own postcode.

PC Cook is rather off his normal beat. H Division covered Whitechapel and had, a few years prior to this story coming out, failed to catch Jack the Ripper.

The Embankment here refers to the Victoria Embankment, a road and pedestrian avenue built by the river as part of a land reclamation project earlier in the century. It had the side effect of permanently ending any hope of Frost Fairs - the river now flows too fast to freeze.

I believe this story takes place pretty much entirely in Baker Street.

Lloyd's refers to Lloyd's of London, a very long running maritime insurance marketplace, who also underwrite a bunch of other insurance policies, including film stars' legs. They keep comprehensive records of ship movements for this purposes.

Gravesend is a town in Kent near what is now the M25 and would be a good place to spot a ship before the Thames Estuary widens out - beyond that, you might easily miss a ship in poor visibility from the few communities beyond it.

The transatlantic telegraph cables were firmly in operation by this point. Their successor cables form the backbone of the modern Internet.

Mail was generally transported on the fastest ships i.e. the ocean liners; so you'd be talking around a week to cross the Atlantic at this point. A sailing ship would be looking at three times as long.

Sliced bread - i.e. bread that came pre-sliced when you bought it - was not a thing until 1928.

Please note that those who wish to post orange pips to the United States today will require a permit from the US Department of Agriculture.

[hella1975]

accent enthusiast and yorkshire citizen here: tho posh pricks and classists attack regional accents (even though by nature these accents are arguably MORE english and retain more germanic features because of less education and/or more rurality, while they sound french) because they hate poor people, i am going to hypothesise that they are also racist

so. i assume youre northern by the sound of your h dropping. h dropping is a very white northern accent trait, people who grew up in places with a significant white majority. however, t dropping is very recent addition to working class northern english which originated with estuary english and spread across the country by ethnic minorities - mostly by second/third gen a. carribbean, south asian and polish people. this creates a new type of working class english which is unique to every city, every ethnicity and every household across britain. its called MBE (multicultural british english). it is usually spoken in places with diverse population. and although not much research has been done on these accents (apart from the one in london bc of fucking course), they are spoken by many many people.

mbe is usually a mix of a. carribbean, south asian, polish and regional slang amd accent features. but one defining characteristic is the t dropping. which again is a pretty new accent feature outside of london. so my hypothesis: they focus on the t dropping specifically because it's unique to ethnically diverse english.

i will talk accents with anyone for hours upon hours upon hours anon i am shaking u by the head for all ur thoughts rn. im not from up north! im a midlands girlie through and through, rural england right by the welsh border. mine is technically a rhotic accent with hints of welsh?? but my town in particular has much more welsh elements than midlands elements just bc of how close we are to the border?? idk my accent has been known to confuse people far and wide lol. the perks of being from the midlands truly.

everything you've said here is new to me, are there any sources/articles you could send me so i can read more? this seems super interesting!

i do however know a bit about midlands' accents/rural english accents, and from what i know of them, the 'dropping Ts' part of certain dialects has been present for centuries. it's called the glottal T (which is v funny to me bc saying that out loud on its own will reveal to people if you t-glottal or not). it's really hard to find out where this originated from and i cant speak for up north but ik in my area the general consensus is that it's just. always been around (which i know can't be true so again! if anyone has any sources or knows anything im such a nerd about these things so pls dont be shy!). still, i always thought it came from old english and a lot of influence from scots? and from my knowledge from its origins in england i always thought it did START with the rural areas like mine? alas for my own sanity i try not to research t-glottalling too much bc even the 5 mins i did for this to double check my facts had me seeing words like 'insidious' and 'lazy' and 'ugly' being thrown about literally bc of a single letter. like insidious are we being serious rn. someone tell barnaby from kent to take deep breaths.

the polish thing really interested me here though bc ive heard once or twice people say about my dialect/region that there are polish elements, and as someone who knows nothing about polish i couldn't really pinpoint to you what it was or anything but seeing it in your ask i was like !!!!! fr !!!!! it's interesting that this could be why people say that.

going back to h-dropping and t-glottalling, my region is actually RENOWNED for 'dropping letters and syllablles left right and centre' <- direct quote from someone trying to explain it lmao. like we've got very farmer accents to the point my flatmate once - very rudely - went on and ON about me having a west country accent and even when i explained it to her over and over that no just bc i have a RURAL accent doesnt mean it has to be west country, she still wouldn't let it go and tried to make a joke that my accent was 'inbred' bc of it. this is the flatmate i made cry and is now too scared to stay at our flat though so all is well <3 so yeah it's not just the northerners! even if we all have to suffer at the hands of the RP folk

the mbe thing is super interesting though bc while i dont know enough about it to speak on the letter dropping, i do know that my own accent has picked up a couple mbe features since coming to uni (mainly just new slang than actual accent but ive had to catch myself a couple times icl). not only is my uni city one of the most multicultural cities in england, but a lot of the student population are from london, which IS the most multicultural city in england. i know there's the stereotypical roadman accent that a lot of people tease about, but that is of course hugely inspired by the ethnicities you listed, particularly caribbean, and a lot of that comes right out of london. there's definitely something to be said about the fact that the people who most often get called chavs/get slated for being rough are also the ones who speak with that multicultural accent. like i WONDER what that's about

[richs-pics]

Arnside railway bridge in the rain

[stargoose-photo]

Grain, Kent, England, August 2024.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Robert Charles Dudley, The Old Frigate Iris with Her Freight of Cable Alongside the Great Eastern at Sheerness: The Cable Passed from the Hulk to the Great Eastern. Watercolor over graphite with touches of gouachey, 1865. (MET, 92.10.55)

"One of the 19th century's great technological achievements was to lay a telegraphic cable beneath the Atlantic, allowing messages to speed back and forth between North America and Europe in minutes, rather than ten or twelve days by steamer. An initially successful attempt in 1858, led by Cyrus W. Field and financed by the Atlantic Telegraph Company, failed after three weeks. Two working cables were finally laid in July and September 1866, the result of repeated efforts by the indefatigable Field, a cadre of engineers, technicians, and sailors, two groups of financial backers, and significant help from the British and United States navies. This watercolor by Dudley shows the cable being loaded onto the ocean-going steamer, the Great Eastern, off the Thames Estuary on the Kent coast. In 1865 the huge ship ship set out with 2,400 miles of cable weighing 4,000 pounds per nautical mile, coiled into three great tanks. Part of a series documenting the long, arduous process, this image was reproduced as a color lithograph in William H. Russell's 1866 book "The Atlantic Telegraph" (92.10.100 and 61.536.5). In 1892 Field donated art works by Dudley, a copy of Russell's book, commemorative medals, memorabilia, and specimens of cable to the Museum."

[aisphotostuff]

Tide Out on the Swale Estuary @ 8am..Beautiful.. by Adam Swaine Via Flickr: Early morning on the Swale a very peaceful place to walk early in the morning so tranquil.The Swale estuary is a 13 mile channel that separates the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland of Kent. In common with most estuaries, this is an environment of continual change with a complex eco-system which is great for a diversity of wildlife.

[snappergeoff]

WW2 pillbox guarding the entrance to the River Thames - and London - on the banks at Thurrock, Essex. Since time immemorial, the whole of the Thames estuary has always heavily protected from attack from the sea, and many signs still exist. From the Napoleonic fort and tank traps around the Isle of Grain in Kent to the submarine barrier stretching out from Shoeburyness. The Ministry of Defence still blows stuff up on the island of Foulness - interesting work if you can get it. // Instax SQ6 (at Thurrock, Essex) https://www.instagram.com/p/CqN6nn0tplx/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[aimeedaisies]

Court Circular | 11th September 2024

St James’s Palace

The Princess Royal this afternoon visited Estuary Services Limited and named a Pilot Vessel at Commercial Quay, Ramsgate Royal Harbour, Ramsgate, followed by a Reception at Royal Temple Yacht Club, Ramsgate, and was received by His Majesty’s Lord-Lieutenant of Kent (the Lady Colgrain).

Her Royal Highness, Patron, English Rural Housing Association, later opened a new development at Carpenters Yard, Shepherdswell, Dover, Kent.