This is a history that looks at the North Foreland on the southeastern coast of Britain west to Penzance, on the southwestern coast. From the preface:
“In the following pages, dealing with the most important or most picturesque of the harbours and seaports of the South Coast from the North Foreland to Penzance, no attempt has been made either to give “guide book information” which can be easily obtained elsewhere; or to afford technical sailing directions, soundings, or nautical information of the type to be found in such books as Cowper’s admirable “Sailing Tours,” “The Pilot’s Guide,” or in the Admiralty Charts. Rather has it been the object of the author to deal with the picturesque side of the various places described, and to give something of their story and romance, both past and present.
That the coastline covered by the present volume has much of interest few will deny. It is, indeed, the one which has played the most strenuous and historic part in the history of our Island Kingdom.
In times of war it has experienced all the terror and excitement which comes in the train of outgoing battle fleets and incoming victorious galleons, men-of-war, and privateers. In times of peace it has known not a little of the romance of wrecking, smuggling, and the pure joy of life which is borne inland by soft, salt breezes and cleansing winds. Of its beauty those can tell who like ourselves have coasted along its varying shores of high chalk cliffs, shingle, sand, and fretted granite. Indeed, where salt water meetsx land there must ever be something worth seeing, recording, and depicting.”