Ramsgate to Margate via Broadstairs and Botany Bay Walk

Anticlockwise: Ramsgate to Broadstairs to Margate

In many places you can choose between a cliff top path, a beach level promenande, or the beach itself.

Ramsgate Station to Dumpton Gap

1. Exit Ramsgate station through the booking hall and turn right down Wilfred Road, passing a Royal Mail building on the right.
2. At the bottom of the road, at traffic lights, turn left, cross the road and in 60 meters turn right through iron gates into Ellington Park, and turn left.
3. Just before reaching a children’s playground, exit the park and turn right down High Street. In 800 meters continue ahead down a pedestrianised section of the street (there is a busy street market here on Fridays and Saturdays).
4. At a road junction, continue ahead down Harbour Street to reach Ramsgate Royal Harbour. Go forward along Harbour Parade, passing the marina on your right.
5. Keep straight on, passing the Royal Victoria Pavilion on your right (recommended, now a Wetherspoons pub in a restored heritage building, with a terrace overlooking the harbour and sea). Carry on along the eastern promenade, with the sea and Ramsgate’s main beach to your right.
6. Continue along the promenade, under high chalk cliffs, presently passing the smaller East Beach to reach some brown stone steps.
7. The promenade comes to a dead end soon after the steps, but you could continue alomg the half rocky half sandy beach at low tide for 1km to Dumpton Gap.
8. Climb the brown stone steps to reach the clifftop. Turn right on a tarmac path, and just after the path bends left, turn right into Memorial Park, keeping straight on along the main path, with a fence to your right. (In the park is a small Italinate Greenhouse with a cafe, closed in 2017, it on the upper, road side of the park)
9. On leaving the park, continue straight ahead along the wide grassy clifftop, with a road to the left.
10. The cliffs dip down at Dumpton Gap, where a footpath leads down to the sea, with a promenade backed by a small cluster of beach huts and a nicely situated café. There is no actual beach here at high tide.

Dumpton Gap to Broadstairs

1. At low tide, you can walk along the beach to Louisa Bay and on to Broadstairs
2. Continue along the grassy clifftop, past Louisa Bay (with a small beach cafe) to arrive at Broadstairs beside the bandstand, overlooking the curve of Viking Bay which encloses Broadstairs’s main beach.
3. You can choose between the high promenade, or crossing the sandy beach
4. Go along the promenade above the beach, coming to the Charles Dickens pub (the recommended lunch stop) over on the left. Almost next door is the Dickens House Museum, where you can turn left (inland) to find many other eating places on Albion Street, running parallel to (and behind) the promenade.
5. For Broadstairs station: go straight on up the High Street (past Iceland and a Tesco Metro) to reach the station in 600 meters.

Broadstairs to Joss Bay

1. From Broadstairs station: Exit the station, walk down the High Street to the sea (600m), and turn left along the promenade
2. Coming out of the pub, turn left to continue along the promenade, which soon slopes down to join Harbour Street running down towards the short pier arm that encloses the harbour.
3. On reaching the pier, keep going northwards along the promenade running between the sea and the cliffs. Just round the bend is Stone Bay, a long, narrow, crescent-shaped beach, whose promenade is lined with beach-huts.
4. At the far end of the promenade, you reach steps that go up, inland.
5. The upper path is about 1.5km long, with a short detour (about 300m) away from the cliff edge around houses. At low tide you can continue along the rocky/sandy beach below to Joss Bay. Beware that the rocks are covered with seaweed and can be very slippery.
6. Turn left up steps (inland) and then along a footpath to reach North Foreland Road, where you turn right.
7. In about 200 meters, turn right into North Foreland Avenue, and right again into Cliff Road (back towards the coast), which later turns left to become Cliff Promenade, running close to the clifftop.
8. At the end of this road, go straight on, past a wastewater pumping station, on to a footpath that follows close to the edge of the unfenced cliff. Over to the left is the North Foreland Lighthouse, the last in the country to be converted to automatic operation, in 1998.
9. Ahead is the sandy cove of Joss Bay, a popular family beach.

Joss Bay to Kingsgate Bay

1. At low tide you can walk at beach level around the short headland to Kingsgate Bay, there is a short stretch of slippery seaweed covered rock
2. Go through the car park, cross the main road into Elmwood Avenue, and immediately turn right on to a tarmac footpath that runs parallel to the coast road.
3. In 200 meters you rejoin the road and turn left, taking great care, since the road is narrow and there is no pavement for the next 80 meters. As the pavement restarts, you pass the entrance to Kingsgate Castle (1760), now divided into luxury residential flats.
4. Continue down the road to Kingsgate Bay, another fine sandy beach, noting the impressive arch in the white cliffs on the far side of the bay.

Kingsgate Bay to Botany Bay

1. At low tide only, you can walk past the arch to Botany Bay
2. Keep on the road, heading uphill to the Captain Digby pub, and turn right through the pub terrace on to an enclosed footpath that heads out to the base of a ruined flint tower on the headland beyond. Look back across the bay for a fine view of the castle.
3. Continue along the grassy clifftop, which presently slopes down to Botany Bay, with its isolated chalk stacks formed by erosion of the cliffs. This popular beach stretches for about 900 meters north-eastwards to Foreness Point. The far end of the beach has some low sand dunes and is the quietest area of beach found during this walk. Its used by naturists.
4. There are 2 ways down to the beach. The first is just before The Botany Bay, a pub set a little back from the cliff top. The other is about half way along the beach, and is less accessable. Its a short sandy scramble down the low cliffs from a point that is easy to see from below but hard to identify from above. Its by 'keep away from the cliff edge' sign.

Botany Bay to Margate Station

1. At very low tide (only) you can walk around the headland to Palm Bay. At mid tide, there's a slopping concrete ledge, covered by very slippery alage, and at high tide its cut off completely.
2. Carry on along the cliffs through an area of rough grassland, past a disused sewage pumping station at Foreness Point and then above the beach at Palm Bay.
3. From here on you can choose the cliff top path, or the wide beach level concrete promenade (safe at any tide)
4. Passing the next bay, Walpole Bay, note the large sea water bathing pool, which retains a great expanse of water by the shore for swimmers to enjoy at low tide.
5. Continue along the cliffs, passing to the left of the Lido (whose swimming pools are now derelict) and then past the Winter Gardens. Join the road and descend Fort Hill towards Margate Harbour, passing the new building of the Turner Contemporary Gallery (free entry) and its cafe.
6. On reaching the harbour, do explore the harbour arm. It has some nice small pubs.
7. Afterwards, follow the road around its edge (or walk across the sands at low tide) and continue alongside the vast expanse of Margate Sands, passing a clock tower to your left.
8. Pass the Mechanical Elephant, a Wetherspoons pub.
9. When opposite Dreamland, cross the road at a pedestrian crossing, turn right, and just round the next corner Margate station can be seen almost straight ahead. About 100m further along the seafront road is a Tesco Metro.