STATELY HOMES, CASTLES & TOWERS

KINGSGATE CASTLE

JOSS GAP ROAD, BROADSTAIRS CT10

No Website, Private Residence
**PARANORMAL ACTIVITY**
There have been no reports of anything paranormal within the castle itself, but a photograph taken by artist Malcolm Baker in 2010 was sent to Haunted Earth. It appears to show the upper body of a white figure moving through foliage just outside the castle. Baker believes the figure to be a nurse in a 1950s uniform, carrying a tray in front of her. A few months later, in 2011, musician Dan Smith reported spotting a nun dressed in white on the beach just after dawn, the figure quickly vanishing. 
**HISTORY**
On the cliffs above Kingsgate Bay stands Kingsgate Castle. Kingsgate is related to King Charles II's incidental landing on 30th June 1683 (the 'gate' refers to a cliff gap). 
Charles had been married to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza. He was on his way to Dover, possibly to meet another vessel to take him to the continent, when he and his brother were forced to end their journey.
The North Forelands have long been a significant hazard to sailors. Their rocky coastlines have been the last resting place of many ships over the centuries. 
Bad weather was dragging the ship onto the lethal Goodwin Sands. The Royal brothers abandoned their journey and scrambled ashore at the fishing hamlet of St Bartholomews, just a mile or two from Bradstow, as Broadstairs was then known, which only had a few hundred inhabitants.
The pair clambered up through a gorge in the chalky cliffs towering 50 feet above them. They were lucky to be alive,
Soon after his landing, the grateful King decreed that henceforth St Bartholomew's should be renamed "King's Gate", with the spot where he came ashore commemorated by a flint gateway erected at the top of the chalk bay. The remnants can still be seen today in the grounds of the Port Regis nursing home.
Other English monarchs, such as George II in 1748, have also used this cove. 
Henry Fox, more latterly Lord Holland (1st Baron Holland), had the castle built in 1760, as the stable block of his nearby 'Holland House' residence. It was the Lord's favourite retreat away from the hussle of London, where he owned another 'Holland House' in what is now Kensington Gardens. At the time, it was simply an imitation of a medieval castle from Edward I's reign. Still, the castle, standing directly opposite the primary Holland House residence, was the centrepiece of Fox's assembly of Gothic edifices. 
Some would have accused him of being the most corrupt person of his day. He had been vilified for reputedly milking the public purse while Paymaster General during the American War of Independence, which began in 1757. Some £50 million was estimated to have passed through his hands, much of which he kept and used to build and maintain his homes, including his Kingsgate residence, where he intended to retire.
So much was the general dispising of Fox that, in 1765, just a few years after he had acquired Kingsgate, he was forced to resign as Paymaster General while, four years later, a petition organised by the Livery of the City of London referred to him as "the public defaulter of unaccounted millions."
His father, Sir Stephen Fox, started life as the son of a lowly Yeoman but rose to become one of the most important members of the Stuart reign and a close associate of Charles II. 
The difference between father and son, however, was that his father was deemed to have deserved his fortune; Henry Fox, on the other hand, angered public opinion to the point that, towards the end, he was largely abandoned by his Royal patrons and aristocratic friends.
Towards the end of his life, when he was rheumatic and gout ridden, Fox turned his back on London society and opted to spend ever more of his time at Kingsgate.
Henry Fox's son and heir, Charles Fox, was spoilt immediately. His father made him a companion and indulged him to the utmost. He had spent much of his youth wandering the meadows and fishing with his doting father.
He was a drunk and a gambler, and his father would always pay off his gambling debts, without question.
His father also arranged for him to become an MP for Midhurst in Kent before he was twenty. A year later, a seat was found for him at the Board of Admiralty, and later, he was to become England's first foreign secretary.
Just before Lord Holland died, he had to find a further £140,000 to pay the gambling debts of Charles, who thereafter lived primarily in pecuniary embarrassment.
When his father died, the castle's ownership passed to him almost immediately, and Charles began disposing of the lands. They were sold to John Powell, Lord Henry Holland's friend and executor. In selling Kingsgate, Charles ended a chapter in the history of Kingsgate Castle and its association with the Foxes, one of the most celebrated, if not infamous, families of the Stuart and Georgian eras.
During his later years, he had given up gambling, lost everything and needed to be supported by the contributions of wealthy friends.
Fox died on 13th September 1806 in the Duke of Devonshire's house in London. 
In a twist of fate, he was buried in Westminster Abbey by the side of his political arch-enemy, Pitt the Younger.
John Powell, too, was to die just a few years later in 1783, and, having never married, the estate passed to his only sister, Elizabeth and her husband, William Roberts Kingsgate and Quex Park, was a part of the real estate bequeathed. The couple's eldest son, Arthur Annesley Roberts, was the primary beneficiary but had to change his name to Powell per his uncle's will. Arthur died in 1813 after a fall from his horse.
Little is known about these intervening years or whether Arthur occupied there. However, in 1807, the castle and some land were sold to Captain Robert Holford, who died in 1838.
Captain Robert's son, Robert Stainer Holford (the Squire of Westonbirt), sold the estate to Ebenezer Fuller Maitland a year later.
As each sale took place, Lord Holland's original estate was decimated bit by bit. By 1839, the remnants of Holland House had become a coastguard station, while its original Doric portico was taken down to adorn the frontage of the newly opened Royal Sea Bathing Hospital at nearby Margate.
One owner, David Hughes, began his career as an errand boy in an attorney's office and worked his way up until he became head of the great house of David Hughes and Company, Old Jewry and New Gresham Street, London. He built the magnificent building in the latter street, where the Great Eastern Steam Shipping Company was located, and he also founded a small city in the neighbouring Islington called "Hughes Town." 
Due to his reckless spirit and lavish lifestyle, he went bankrupt in 1857. He fled to Victoria, Australia, to evade his creditors and debts amounting to £200,000. However, police brought him back on a court order, 
He was committed for trial on four separate charges—two for obtaining money under false pretences and valueless securities, one for misappropriating money, and the other for absconding and not surrendering to his bankruptcy.
In January 1860, he was found guilty and sentenced to 10 years' penal servitude as a warning to others. Hughes was astounded at his sentence and left the bar quietly, with his head down. 
Kingsgate Castle had a new owner – the wealthy Jonas Levy(Levi or Levey).
Levy came to acquire Kingsgate Castle from the bankrupt David Hughes when the estate was sold. He may even have known Hughes, due to their line of work.
Levy occupied the castle for the best part of thirty-five years; by all accounts, he lived in grand style.
A barrister, newspaper proprietor, and major shareholder in the London Brighton railway, Levy divided his time between Kingsgate and his primary home in Tavistock Square.
When Levy acquired the castle in 1859, he already had ample means. His family had built their fortunes from operating toll gates across the country, among other things. However, as the new railway lines began to challenge the traditional horse-drawn carriages as a means of public transport, the family soon diverted their wealth into funding train companies.
Thus, Levy soon found himself vice-chairman of the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, a role he relished because it allowed him to meet top dignitaries and nobility of the day, including the then Prince of Wales.
In addition, he was a barrister, local magistrate in Margate, owner of a large town house in London's Tavistock Square, a director of the famed Crystal Palace, and newspaper owner. But above all, he loved the theatre and was something of a Bohemian-cum-bon vivreur.
As one contemporary writer of the time recalled: 
"I had known him for more than five-and-twenty years, and had often listened to the stories he told of the Reunion, the Savage, the Urban, the Whitefriars, and other clubs to which he belonged, where his presence was ever welcome. He had ample means, and, being a barrister, occupied chambers in Grey's Inn (where he had an extensive and valuable library), besides a house in Tavistock Square and a little castle at Kingsgate in the Isle of Thanet. His father was a well-known toll-gate contractor who amassed a fortune by controlling the revenues of turnpike roads, farming market tolls, coal dues, etc. When the railways drove the coaches from the streets, and the turnpikes became unprofitable, he invested his capital wisely in railway stock, which he left to his son, who told me that he had never parted with a single share that had been thus bequeathed to him. This fact, combined with his legal knowledge and business habits, led Lord Westbury to propose his joining the directorate of the London and Brighton Railway, of which he became deputy-chairman in 1869, an office he retained until his decease. He also took a great interest in managing the Crystal Palace, of which he was a director.''
According to Levy's contemporary, scarcely an individual of any standing who trod the London stage a quarter of a century ago or engaged in journalism at that time did not know Jonas. 
He also recalled:
"His social position and independent means in no way affected his conduct towards those whom he met as club chums, for he was thoroughly Bohemian when away from his official duties, and never felt more at home than when he was smoking his short clay pipe and drinking his weak brandy and water, surrounded by agreeable companions.
It may be added that his being a bachelor enabled him to indulge his gregarious inclinations without reproach."
Though a bachelor, Levy lived "in good style" at the castle before he died at 83. 
This would have made him the castle's longest-standing owner, having had the deeds for nearly forty years. During his occupation, there were always other people with him. The 1881 Census lists at least half a dozen, some of whom were servants. The Census gives them as:
Annabella Copper, age 64, Visitor
Ellen Fanchon, age 67, Visitor
Annie Barber, age 34, Cook
William Barber, age 37, Coachman
Ann Hazell, age 22 Housemaid
By all accounts, Levy was not just a Bohemian but also an exceptionally generous person. 
Back to one of his contemporaries:
''It is almost impossible for anyone who knew Jonas Levy intimately to speak of him without referring to his readiness to assist any charitable object."
He reveals how another of his many associates called him "the most generous and the most charitable of mankind, but one who never let his left hand know what his right hand did in the way of writing cheques for the necessitous."
Another, the naturalist Henry Lee, similarly confirmed Levy's generosity, revealing:
"I always knew he was generous, but I did not know till the other day the extent of his generosity. I met him in the Strand, and he told me he thought he could not last much longer and would like me to go with him to his chambers in Verulam Buildings.
"When we got there, he lit his pipe, and, opening a drawer, said that it contained a lot of papers, some of which he would not like to leave behind him, and he therefore intended to look through them and destroy those which I could help him to select. These proved to be promissory notes, IOUS, and receipts for loans, many of them bearing names not unfamiliar to the Liabilities of Clubland. Without an unkind remark, he tore up. He threw into the fire documents amounting to a thousand pounds. He said he thought it as well to do it in the presence of a witness upon whose secrecy he could rely, and of course I now mention this in confidence.
A few weeks before his death, I spent some days with him at Kingsgate. The ladies attending to him told me that he was constantly forwarding cheques to people who were not tradesmen, from whom he required no acknowledgement.
When I parted from him, he put a packet into my hand, saying, 'I may never see you again; take this; it used to be my favourite."
The packet contained a silver-mounted meerschaum pipe and a slip of paper on which was written, under my name, 'From his old friend Jonas Levy.'
It was also reported that he ate sparingly, smoked a short pipe, dressed shabbily, relished jest, told good stories, and was the good angel of members who sometimes found it difficult to pay their subscriptions. He kept two bowls of money on the hall table, one filled with gold and one with silver, so that his guests might not be short of change. 
Before Levy took possession of Kingsgate Castle, it had already been turned into comfortable lodgings. 
When Jonas died at the castle on 7th July 1884,  His probate record states that he had 55 Tavistock Square, 4 Verulam Buildings, Grays Inn, both in Middlesex and Kingsgate Castle. The beneficiaries were Benjamin Lewis Moseley, Barrister in law (His adopted son), Edward Bernard Solicitor William Gill Esq L.R.C.P, and George Edward Lyon Esq Barrister in Law. Effects £135228 13s 4d.
His adopted son, Benjamin Mosley, eventually emigrated to America with his family. Once again, the castle was on the market. 
In 1900, the Gothic pile and its surrounding 124 acres of land were snapped up by another wealthy magnate, Lord John Lubbock Jr., a Banker and head of the banking firm Roberts, Lubbock and Co., who was one of the most erudite and popular men of his day.
Like Levy, he was to die at the castle, but not before he committed himself to a massive renovation of the premises. Using his immense wealth to display his taste, he adorned the castle with the family Pelican crest, which is still much in evidence today.
Although both were old Etonians, Lord Lubbock was a far cry from the infamous Lord Holland, whose castle ownership predated him by nearly a century and a half.
Whereas Holland – justly or otherwise – was one of the most vilified men of his day, Lubbock was one of the most popular and, having purchased the castle for £7,750 in 1900 from Benjamin Mosley, wasted little time in making it his family seat and stamping his own identity on the Gothic pile.
The purchase of Kingsgate coincided with his elevation to the House of Lords as the first Baron Avebury, so the castle lent itself to his new sense of status.
In addition to the castle, all the land on the seaward side of Joss Gap Road stretching from the stairs at Kingsgate Bay to the gate at Joss Gap, together with a triangular parcel of land opposite the Castle gates, was included in the sale. Just for good measure, a pew in the local church, St Peter the Apostle, was thrown in.
Meanwhile, the new Baron Avebury was about recreating Kingsgate Castle in his style.
At a time when Britain was at its Imperial zenith, if not the most potent economic force in the world, the nation's banks provided the oil that greased the wheels of international commerce.
Lord Lubbock was born in 1834, son of Sir John William Lubbock – a member of the peerage and a highly distinguished man of science – was elevated to partner in his father's bank, Lubbock & Co., at just age 22.
But Lord Lubbock's real passion was science. At an early age, his father gave him a microscope at the suggestion of Charles Darwin, a close family friend and neighbour when the Lubbocks lived in Bromley, Kent.
Lubbock Jr. was also responsible for drawings published in some of Darwin's books as a teenager.
Later, in 1859, he was to prove one of Darwin's staunchest supporters in the storm of controversy that followed the publication of his book 'On the Origin of Species'.
When Darwin died in April 1882, Lord Lubbock, still a close friend and neighbour, was one of the pallbearers at the great man's Westminster Abbey funeral.
Throughout his life, Lord Lubbock continued to educate himself during his holidays and free time. When not working at the bank, he programmed his day's activities from 6.30 a.m. to midnight, reading for seven to eight hours daily on various subjects, including history, politics, mathematics, and the natural sciences.
He married Ellen Hordern in 1856. They had six children, but Ellen died in 1879 after many years of poor health, never having recovered from a railway accident in which they were both involved.
Five years later, on 13th May 1884, he married again to Alice Augusta Laurentia Lane Fox-Pitt from Five Elms in Kent, and they had five more children. 
On his father's death in 1865, he succeeded to the baronetcy.
As MP for Maidstone from 1870, he introduced many reform bills. His first parliamentary success was passing the Bank Holiday Act (1871).
He then turned his attention to the conditions of shop workers, a reform he continued to press for until his death.
Sir Lubbock soon became the most popular figure in England. In 1900, he was raised to the peerage and took Lord Avebury's title after the prehistoric site he had saved.
He died at the castle on 28th May 1913, age 79.
In 1914, a fire occurred when some bedding being aired in front of the grate caught fire in the Ruskin Room, damaging some valuable paintings.
It was also about this time that novelist John Buchan wrote what was to become the acclaimed spy thriller 'The 39 Steps', which was published in 1915.
While it's commonly assumed the steps were inspired by those leading down to the beach from St Cuby's, a house where Buchan was recuperating from a duodenal ulcer near Broadstairs, Kent, another inspirational contender might be the iron staircase leading down from Kingsgate Castle to the then private beach, both of which had been owned by Lord Avebury.
Given Lubbock's known views on promoting Anglo-German relations, John Buchan may have viewed Lord Avebury, better known as the wealthy banker and humanitarian John Lubbock, as a German sympathiser.
But in 1915, the First World War had only just started. While Lubbock had passed away two years beforehand, the heightened animosity towards Germany might have formed Buchan's views on the late Lord, and with it, a fictional view on the role of Kingsgate Castle.
John Buchan's famous novel centres on the legendary steps down which a German spy tries to make his escape to a waiting boat. While the consensus is that the steps ran down from the cliff at North Foreland near St Cupids, a rest home where Buchan was staying while writing, was Buchan just as inspired by the steps leading down to the beach from Kingsgate Castle as much as those descending from St. Cuby's?
For starters, the Castle stairs, unlike those at St Cuby's, were visible from the cliffs as described in the book and, from the beach, led up to a metal door in the cliff-face behind which was another staircase that spiralled up through the chalk into the bowels of the building. The external staircase is no longer there, but photos show it was welded from three sections, leading directly to the castle's private beach, and the individual steps may have been numbered 39. On the other hand, the number of steps leading to the beach from St Cuby's was 70-something, which puzzled aficionados about the title of Buchan's book.
By contrast, unlike the more rocky beach beneath St Cuby's, Kingsgate Bay's remote sandy beach would have been ideal for a boat to moor at high tide.
The internal staircase is still in Kingsgate Castle today, though the castle is now divided into private apartments. 
A more critical clue about the steps' inspirational provenance comes from Arthur Campbell Turner's biography of John Buchan. In Mr Buchan, writer: A Life of the First Lord Tweedsmuir, the biographer clearly states, "..the original of the famous staircase led down to the sea from Kingsgate Castle."
In the final stages of the book, where Hannay corners the villains at a villa where the steps are alleged to descend from, there is a silver cigarette box to be found – won by Percival Appleton, the arch villain, of the "St. Bede's Club." It could be that St Bede's was inspired by St Mildred's convent and medieval monastery, now a nursing home, and Hanneys' escape by disguising himself as Captain Digby, relating to the Captain Digby pub, which directly overlooks Kingsgate Castle, which Buchan may have visited during his time there.
Buchan's work was, of course, a work of fiction, and doubtless the characters and places were composites. But given the clues and the evidence of his biographer, the real inspiration for the fabled steps could well be those that led down from the castle.
Lord Avebury and William Capel Slaughter were responsible for the founding of North Foreland Golf Club in 1903 and, with Sir Luke Fildes and Clifford Brookes, sat on the first committee of the new club. Within a few years thoughts turned to enlarging the course to 18 holes. It was then that the committee turned to another member, Alfred Charles William Harmsworth (Lord Northcliffe & owner of the Daily Mail.). Harmsworth was the owner of the large estate on the other side of Convent Road.
Lord Northcliffe died in August 1922 and Lady Avebury put the castle and land up for auction but it didnt sell and was sold privately in October 1922, to Mr R F Pearce of Palm Bay Cliftonville. He wanted to convert it into a golfing hotel, with its private beach for bathing. Several tennis courts were available for the guests to while away the time, if not playing a few rounds at Northcliffe's golf course opposite.
It became a fashionable hotel, attracting stars such as John Mills, Constance Cummings, and Peggy Ashcroft. In the communal hallway of the castle, a board signed by some of the hotel's more illustrious guests remains in the castle foyer.
In 1953, the castle's contents went to auction before it was converted into 32 flats, freehold between  £1,250 and £2,700, all with terraces facing the seafront.
In the 1970's it was at risk of corrosion of the sea wall and flat 22 had to be evacuated. extensions of the property were later rejected by the council due to this problem.