Smuggling & Smugglers Inns - Kent & Sussex
The evocative poem below by Rudyard Kipling conjures up images of loveable rogues moving silently through the night, their ponies laden with tobacco and French brandy – this romanticism, albeit slightly misleading, was perpetuated by contemporaries including Richard Barham, author of The Ingoldsby Legends and Russell Thorndyke, the 20th century creator of smuggling cleric Dr Syn.
‘Five-and-twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark
Brandy for the Parson,‘Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie
Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!’
Given its proximity to continental Europe, smuggling was rife in Kent and Sussex involving people at every level of society – it was highly organised, usually by gangs – groups of sailors, demobbed soldiers, fishermen, labourers and adventurers – who routinely practised blackmail, robbery, violence and even murder.
The most vicious and notorious were from Hawkhurst, Aldington – the gang’s 1827 Battle of Brookland with the Revenue is legendary or Broadstairs – its Callis Court gang was famously led by the nonagenarian Jos Snelling – Such groups used the areas remotest hostelries for planning operations and both storing and distributing contraband – many had hidden tunnels for a quick exit.
On the other side of the law, pubs served as temporary mortuaries and hospitals – The Ship, Herne Bay – courts, Dymchurch’s Ship Hotel or overlooked gibbets and gallows – Woodchurch’s Bonny Cravat.
Smuggling began in the 1200s in response to duties levied on wool, England’s main European export- initially this spelled disaster for Kent’s many sheep farmers who, for centuries, sidestepped the levy by illegally exporting wool extremely profitably to France.
This was made punishable by death in the 1660s, whereupon smugglers carried weapons or used armed minders, thus making violence inevitable – by the 1820s gangs were illegally bringing in tea, tobacco, lace, silk and spirits to avoid import duties.
The practice was so widespread that many people – from fishermen and pub landlords to churchmen, magistrates and squires – were involved in hiding, transporting, marketing, financing and generally turning a blind eye to smuggling – it was not seen as a crime, as it provided vital extra income for the poor.
Smugglers were treated harshly – transported to Australia or hanged – as an example.
The Ship, Herne Bay – Dating from around 1385, The Ship is firmly associated with smuggling and one tale in particular illustrates this.
In April 1821 the 60-strong North Kent gang and its armed guards met up by the inn and went down to the beach to await the arrival of a consignment of tobacco, tea, lace, brandy and gin – they were challenged by the Herne Bay Coastal Blockade party, led by Midshipman Sydenham Snow, and fought back fiercely – Snow’s pistol misfired and he later died of his injuries at the inn – The smugglers escaped.
The Walnut Tree, Aldington, Ashford – This 14th-century wattle and daub hut was improved by successive owners and by the 1800s was a thriving hostelry – also the meeting place for the fearsome Aldington Gang – led by Cephas Quested and later by George Ransley.
During the 15th century a small bedroom was added on a higher level, accessed only by a ladder – in its smuggling heyday, a light placed in the window as a warning or an all-clear signal was visible across Romney Marsh to the sea – in 1821 Quested and Richard Wraight brother of the pub’s landlord were arrested in Brookland and Quested was hanged.
The Woolpack Inn, Warehorne, Ashford – This inn was originally a medieval farmhouse but became a pub during the 16th century – situated deep within wool smuggling country, the Woolpack Inn has a tunnel connecting the pub with the churchyard opposite – the bricked-up entrance lies behind a cupboard in the pub’s hall.
In 1817 Warehorne’s curate, Reverend Richard Barham, described the remoteness of the Romney Marsh village as being advantageous to the “desperadoes engaged in what, by a technical euphemism, was termed – The Free Trade” – Barham, author of the popular Ingoldsby Legends, turned a blind eye to contraband stored in his church.
The Bell Inn, Hythe – reputed to be the oldest pub in Hythe, parts of The Bell Inn date back to the 15th century when the town was a prosperous port – the pub sits atop a stream and casks of spirits were floated in through a tunnel in the cellar and discreetly suspended from the ceiling – the chimney stack served as a lookout point – the footholds remain visible – and goods were moved between rooms via gaps between two inglenook back-to-back fireplaces.
In 1963 a builder made a gruesome discovery – bricked up behind one of the fireplaces were the bodies of two 18th-century Revenue officers in remarkably well-preserved uniforms.
Star & Eagle Hotel, Goudhurst – once known as the Black Spread Eagle, this 14th-century inn right in the heart of the Kentish Weald was a headquarters of the Hawkhurst gang – during the 1740s they robbed and terrorised the local villagers under the leadership of brothers George and Thomas Kingsmill.
The Red Lion, Snargate, Romney Marsh – Snargate’s tiny Red Lion dates from around 1540 – This Grade II-listed pub, which hasn’t been decorated since 1890, features an antique marble bar top, low wooden beams, original gaslight fittings and outside toilets – a piano and an old spinning wheel add to the rustic charm.
Smugglers regularly drank there, too, storing contraband in the tower of the medieval St Dunstan Church opposite. In the 1820s – Reverend Barham also the curate of Warehorne claimed the strong smell of tobacco helped him find his way home on a dark night.
Practically every port or village in West Sussex has some sort of association with the widespread smuggling which went on in the 18th and early 19th centuries in the county.
West Sussex was an obvious place for a smuggler to ply his trade – the West Sussex coast was barely inhabited – Men from the inland villages like Lancing or Findon would often take the short journey down to the deserted coastline at night to take in loads of valued goods, which were mostly destined for rich consumers in London who were keen enjoy their luxuries without paying the duty on them.
Although the Channel crossing to the Kent ports is shorter, the Sussex coast was very attractive to smugglers because the difficult journey to London was shorter. Shoreham, for example, is the closest English Channel port to London.
Sussex smuggling gangs – In some villages practically the whole male population lent a hand when smuggling was afoot. In truth, the violent nature of many of the leaders of the smuggling gangs meant that many potentially law-abiding citizens were afraid of the consequences of not joining in.
THE SMUGGLERS STONE – The Smugglers Stone was erected in 1749 at the site where the convicted smuggler Jackson was buried – the Smugglers Stone is close to the old smugglers haunt of Brandy Hole Lane – now a nature reserve.
Chichester was a hot bed of smuggling with Bosham, Dell Quay and the other Chichester Harbour ports all bringing contraband into the West Sussex – smuggling was even more rife at Selsey where it wasthe greatest contributor to the wealth of local people for a time in the late 18th century.
By then the scale of the smuggling operations was huge and the ships, equipment, manpower and even weapons of the smuggling men was far superior to those that the authorities could call on. In 1784 for example the captain of the Roebuck, a Customs ship patrolling Chichester Harbour, was forced to give up the smuggling ship he had just apprehended because of the threat from another smuggling ship that decided to intervene. He was simply powerless to stop the smugglers.
Cuckmere Haven still shows the evidence of this industry today – in the late eighteenth century huge gangs of men used to turn up on the beach at Cuckmere Haven a couple of nights a week to collect the contraband from as many as dozen vessels anchored off the coast – some of them parked up quite blatantly in daylight hours.
Other evidence of smuggling at the beach of Cuckmere Haven is the precarious presence of the coastguard cottages on the cliff beside the river – under threat from the encroaching sea and the crumbling cliff edge – defensive walls have been erected by the residents and then periodically destroyed by the sea and rebuilt overlooking the beach.
Cuckmere Haven wasn’t the only spot favoured by the smugglers – nearby Birling Gap and Crowlink in the Seven Sisters, as well as Eastbourne, Pevensey Bay and Hastings were all entry points – and in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were not the popular resorts they became later and were relatively isolated and unpopulated.
Hastings – has plenty of reminders of the smuggling era – The Smugglers’ Adventure, in St Clement’s Cave on West Hill, offers and engaging interactive recreation of the smuggling era.
The Old Town retains many of the buildings that would have been part of Joseph Swaine’s landscape, and the fishermen’s net houses remain in their original condition – up above the beach, two local pubs have smuggling associations – The Hastings Arms in George Street has a brandy barrel concealed under a window ledge on the first floor which was once linked by pipes to a tap above the bar so that ‘genuine Crowlink’ could be dispensed from the wood without attracting undue attention.
The cellars of the Stag Inn on All Saints Street were once linked by a tunnel to cave on the hills above.
The Royal Oak at Langstone was a classic smugglers haunt – tucked away in the Chichester Harbour Area.