Rubbish at Ebbsfleet
SIR.—The Borough of Ramsgate includes some land on the coast at Ebbsfleet, which is accepted as being the place at which Hengist and Horsa first landed in this country in A.D. 449. St. Augustine landed on the same spot 140 years later. These matters render the patch of fore- shore in question of unique interest to Englishmen. as is stressed by John Richard Green in his Short History of the English People.
In 1949 the 1,500th anniversary of the landing of the first of the .English was celebrated by a party of Danes rowing across the sea, in emulation of the feat achieved by their forefathers, in a vessel of the same type. The local councils, including Ramsgate Borough Council, themselves joined in the celebration. The event was marked by the setting up of a granite stone, suitably inscribed, and the vessel used, the Hugin," now sits on concrete cradles at a place not far from the actual spot on which Hengist and Horsa first came ashore.
Now, however, Ramsgate Borough Council is in difficulties as to the disposal of its household refuse, and has resolved to use the very piece of land in question as a controlled tip. In spite of objections by myself and other members of the Ramsgate Borough Council, the scheme is to go forward, and the tipping of rubbish is to start in the summer of this year. It seems to me, however, that the Ramsgate Borough Council is affected by a trust in respect of this land, the soil which " first felt the tread of English feet," and that to tip rubbish on it, however well the tipping is done, amounts to a breach of that trust which ought not to be carried out. The cestuis que trustent under such a trust are the English people everywhere, and it is in the hope that some of them may read this letter, and by some means intervene, that I write and hope you may
publish it.—I am, Sir, your obedient servant, A. R. Your-lo. Little Oaks, Cliff's End, Ramsgate, Kent.
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