Rock Gardens and Cliff Stairs

A pathway and imitation rockery landscaping leading from Winterstoke Gardens to Winterstoke Undercliff, built in 1936 to the designs of Alec Adlington and Pulham and Sons.

The rock gardens and cliff stairs about 30m south of Sunshelter, Victoria Parade, Ramsgate is listed at Grade II they are comparable in interest to other designated examples of Pulhamite structures and representative of the Pulhams’ innovative design and construction of garden and park structures. The structure forms part of an important grouping of Pulhamite structures which are spaced along the seafront at Ramsgate and which were built in the period between 1893 and 1936.

Winterstoke Gardens, with rockery work by Sir John Burnet and Partners and Pulham and Sons, was laid out in 1923. A gift to the borough from Dame Janet Stancombe-Wills, it cost £10,000. As a continuation of this planned landscape, this case considers the portion of cliff face and the sloping pathway which forms Winterstoke Chine, connecting the Eastcliff to Winterstoke Undercliff, were added in 1936 to the designs of Pulham and Sons with the borough engineer, Alec Adlington at a cost of £23,000.

Chalk cliff face, with inbuilt slatted wooden seats. The central walkway follows a lengthy, dogleg pattern, with Pulhamite forming a rockery setting with textured rockwork surfaces imitating geological strata and irregular planting troughs to both sides. Alcoves for fixed wooden benches are placed at intervals along the route and some are approached by steps.

The construction entirely covers the cliff face and is blended with the natural chalk by irregular edges at either end. The sloping walkway with regularly-spaced, short flights of steps, leads up from the eastern side and then doubles back at the halfway point to rise to the Winterstoke Gardens. The walkway surface is scored in imitation of irregular, crazy paving. At the top there is a generous platform which projects out from the cliff to form the approach to the slope. Alcoves are let into the surface of the cliff along the path and accommodate fixed seats, and rockwork also forms a natural balustrade to allow views on the south side facing the sea.

Created: 21  February  2021  Edited: 29  November  2023