The Kent Coast has a long history of smuggling, One of the most
famous local smuggling gangs were the North Kent Gang and one of their favourite landing places was Reculver.
Sometimes it is hard to tell fact from legend the cache is
loacted near the site of immortalized in verse by the Rev Richard
Barham, vicar of Snargate, in his well-known Ingoldsby Legends.
Barham was inspired to write The Smuggler's Leap by an entry in a
history of Thanet, which he quotes at the start of the poem:
"Near this hamlet (Acol) is a long-disused chalk pit...known by
the name of 'The Smuggler's Leap.' The tradition of the parish runs
that a riding officer from Sandwich, called Anthony Gill, lost his
life here...while in pursuit of a smuggler. A fog coming on, both
parties went over the precipice...The spot has, of course, been
haunted ever since"
Barham embroiders his story to feature Lucifer and a demon horse
that spouts flame when shot, but the tale begins at Reculver:
The fire-flash shines from Reculver cliff,
And the answering light burns blue in the skiff,
And there they stand, That smuggling band,
Some in the water and some on the sand,
Ready those contraband goods to land:
The night is dark, they are silent and still,
— At the head of the party is Smuggler Bill.
the epic frequently lapses into doggerel:
For Manston Cave, away! away!
Now speed thee, now speed thee, my good dapple-grey,
It shall never be said that Smuggler Bill
Was run down like a hare by Exciseman Gill!'
Manston Cave was Bill's abode,
A mile to the north of the Ramsgate road,
(Of late they say It's been taken away,
That is, levell'd and fill'd up with chalk and clay, By a gentleman
there of the name of Day)
Thither he urges his good dapple-grey;...
The poem continues in similar gothic style for dozens of
stanzas, and must have played a major part in the romanticization
of smuggling that arguably began in the late Victorian era. And
though the chase ends in death, the poem succeeds in making
exciseman Gill's job sound almost exciting.
The reality was very different — life for exciseman Gill
and his colleagues meant many hours of excruciating boredom
shivering in the cold, interspersed with brief and probably
terrifying encounters in which they were out-gunned and outnumbered
by the smugglers. Little wonder that so many excisemen preferred to
take two barrels as a bribe, hand one over as confiscated booty,
and sit snug in the watch-house drinking the other.
Read the full poem Here