Folkestone

Folkestone (Derivation: probably OE; Foica’s stone) is a seaport and resort town in Kent, UK some 11 km (7 miles) WSW of Dover. It was a late developer, becoming officially a port in 1629 and a late “auxiliary” member of the - by now numerous – Cinque Ports.

Prosperity arrived in the 19th century with the railway from London, which turned the town into a major cross-Channel port and established it as a destination for day-trippers with all the traditional English hoopla associated with “a day at the seaside”. Today, Folkestone is joined to the capital by the M20 Motorway and, since 1994, is the English end of the Channel Tunnel.

Folkestone was the setting for the H.G. Wells novel Kipps.

Reference: "Brewer’s Britain and Ireland"