ntsum turned the new Thanet
seaward, by the chalky cliffs; and the gaps or gates in that natural
sea-wall now began to be of comparative importance as fishing stations
and small havens. Ebb's Fleet was no longer the port of Ruim. The
centre of gravity of the island shifts at this point, accordingly, from
Minster to Ramsgate. The change is well marked by certain interesting
ecclesiastical facts. Neither Ramsgate nor Broadstairs had originally
churches of their own. The first formed part of the parish of St.
Lawrence, which was itself a mere chapelry of Minster till late in the
thirteenth century. The old village lies half a mile inland, and
Ramsgate itself was throughout the middle ages nothing more than a mere
gap and cove where the fishermen of St. Lawrence kept their boats. The
first church in the town proper was not erected till 1791. Similarly,
Broadstairs formed part of the parish of St. Peter's, the village of
which lies back at about the same distance from the sea as St.
Lawrence; and St Peter's, too, was at first a chapelry of Minster. The
cliffs were then nothing; the inward slope was everything.

Margate seems to have been the first place in the new Thanet to attain
the honour of a place in history. As in two previous cases, the Mere
Gate was at first but a fisherman's station for the village of St.
John's, which gathered about the old church at the south end of the
existing town. But as the Northmouth closed up, and Sandwich Haven
decayed, the Mere Gate naturally became the little local port for corn
grown on the island and wool raised on the newly-reclaimed Minster
Level. A wooden pier existed at Margate long before the reign of Henry
VIII., when Leland found it "sore decayed," and the village was in
repute for fishery and coasting trade. Throughout the Stuart period
Margate was the ordinary place of departure and arrival for Flushing
and the Low Countries. William of Orange frequently sailed hence, and
Maryborough used it for almost all his expeditions. It was about the
middle of the last century, however, that the real prosperity of
Margate first began. Then it was that citizens of credit and renown in
London first hit upon the glorious discovery of the seaside, and that
watering-places tentatively and timidly raised their unobtrusive heads
along the nearer beaches. The journey from London could be made far
more easily by river than that to Brighton by coach; and so Margate,
the nearest spot to town (by wa