From being the departure point for First World War troops, to becoming a busy ferry port and now one of Kent’s most popular tourist attractions, Folkestone harbour arm has a fascinating history.

Here, reporter Sam Lennon speaks to those who remember working on the cross-Channel ships - and looks at how the once derelict site has been revived in recent years…

As a youngster, Andy Stevens commuted to school on ferries from Folkestone to Boulogne.

A decade later his brother Nick was up day and night fielding worldwide media enquiries when a ship ran aground in a historic storm.

This was the life of a family ingrained in Folkestone’s cross-Channel industry, three generations of whom worked for the Sealink service.

It is now long gone but the area the ships sailed from has been transformed into the present Folkestone Harbour Arm, a tourist attraction that brings in two million people a year.

The harbour is also famous as a stop for the legendary Orient Express and from where First World War soldiers sailed to the Western Front.

Andy, now 57, crossed to Boulogne twice a week with his mum in the mid-1970s as his father, the late Gerry Stevens, was Sealink port manager in the French town.

He told KentOnline: “We had a house in Dover and a house in Boulogne, and used to commute between Folkestone and Boulogne at least twice a week between 1974 and 1976 when I attended Godefroy de Bouillion school in Boulogne.

“Our dad would come back to Dover via Boulogne-Folkestone with us at weekends. Then it would be off to school in Boulogne again, and dad back to work, via Folkestone-Boulogne every Sunday evening.

“The ships were packed to the rafters with day-trippers and holidaymakers, and Sealink really was one big happy family in those times. Many of the old shipmates and passengers from back then still speak of it with great affection to this day.

“It truly was a golden era too, of course, for day-trippers and booze cruises to Boulogne, and many French visitors at the time coming over to enjoy a trip to Folkestone as well.”

His brother Nick, now 66, was always schooled in Dover and was PR manager for Sealink in the 1980s.

One of the most dramatic moments in his career was when the Sealink ferry the Hengist ran aground on the beach at Folkestone during the Great Storm of 1987.

Nick said: “I spent then probably nearly 24 hours a day on location by the stranded ferry fielding all the media enquiries and doing live TV news interviews to UK-based broadcasters as well as worldwide.”

He added: “The 1980s otherwise was an absolutely thriving period for Folkestone-Boulogne in particular as the day-trip market and duty-free shopping was at its absolute peak.

“All media, press, radio and TV always wanted to go to Boulogne via Folkestone and the publicity machine then was at full throttle.”

Nick remembers that during 1985/86, the route was given particularly high prominence with the filming of Minder on the Orient Express, a two-hour special for the classic TV comedy-drama starring Dennis Waterman.

Sailings sometimes had stars on board such as actors from the hit sitcom 'Allo 'Allo to promote and launch new facilities such as Orient Express lounges on the ships Hengist and Hors.

Nick added: “For many years the Folkestone-Boulogne route continued to flourish as the preferred day-trip service/destination and also then still provided the ferry link of the London-Venice Orient Express service.”

The Stevens family’s links to the Dover and Folkestone cross-Channel industry go back to the 1920s.

Nick and Andy’s grandfather Percy was a chief steward on the old steamships.

At the turn of the 1940s/50s, his son Gerry began as assistant purser - responsible for the handling of money on the ferries - and then became senior purser until 1972.

That year he went into management and was responsible for pioneering and developing the Port of Folkestone to become a car ferry terminal. Before then it had been for foot and train passengers only.

Ann Berry was one of the many Folkestonians who would regularly sail as passengers to Boulogne.

She would cross the Channel two or three times every summer in the 1970s and 1980s with family and friends.

Mrs Berry, now 84, said: “A lot of people would go across for the day to buy cheap wine and cigarettes in France. I never smoked but I would still go out in a group there for a good day out.

“It was sad when the ferries came to an end and the harbour went downhill in the years after that because it was not really well looked after any more. It still had to be regularly de-silted because ships still needed to use the harbour even if it was no longer ferries.”

She says the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994 contributed to the downfall of the town’s harbour.

“People were then attracted to that as something new,” Mrs Berry said.

“But also by the 80s more people were taken away by cheap flights to Spain.

“But the new harbour arm has made the area very popular with people coming from as far as London.

“They can use a free bus from the central station. You see queues of people snaking out of the train and going onto the bus.”

From Wilfred Owen to Winston Churchill

When the present Folkestone Town Council was formed in 2004, Mrs Berry became its first mayor. But she is particularly well known as a vice-chairman of Step Short, the group organising the commemoration of the harbour’s role as a sailing point for First World War soldiers to the battlefields of Belgium and France.

Mrs Berry said: “It is that period in the harbour’s history that needs to be remembered most. It was such a terrible war and many who left from Folkestone never came back.”

The town was a key departure point for British soldiers and they were billeted in properties overnight on The Leas before catching their troop ships.

The war poet Wilfred Owen had written to his mother from the trenches in 1917, describing staying at the Metropole Hotel before his sailing.

He said: “I arrived at Folkestone, and feet up at the best hotel. It was a place of luxury – inconceivable now – carpets as deep as the mud here.”

The Road of Remembrance is so-called because it was the direct route for troops marching from the town straight to the harbour.

It was then known as Slope Road and soldiers were ordered to “step short” down the steep hill.

The amount of soldiers that left from Folkestone gave it the nickname “gateway to the trenches”.

An estimated 9,253,652 British officers and men, 537,523 allied troops, and 846,919 Red Cross and other workers passed through.

The harbour arm’s Mole Cafe served soldiers and statesmen about to board boats to the Front.

Its visitors' book had the signatures of 42,000 people including Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

One passenger who didn’t leave her name was the notorious spy for Germany, Mata Hari. The Dutchwoman was stopped by secret servicemen as she tried to board a ship to France in December 1915.

She eventually escaped but two years later was captured and executed by firing squad in France.

Folkestone also welcomed around 116,000 Belgian refugees, with about 15,000 staying in the town.

The town a decade ago celebrated this era for the 100th anniversary of Britain’s entry into the First World War on August 4, 1914.

A giant stainless steel Memorial Arch, called Step Short, was built on The Leas and opened by Prince Harry on the exact centenary anniversary.

In Tontine Street, just a few minutes’ walk from the harbour, 63 people were killed in the first aeroplane-borne bombing raid in British history.

German pilots who had failed to strike London, turned around on the way back and dropped their deadly loads on Folkestone.

Queues of people had been lined up outside the Stokes Brothers' greengrocers after a consignment of potatoes had arrived.

Another 34 people died from dropped bombs further out in the town that day, May 25, 1917.

Stoke Brothers was totally destroyed and it is now only occupied by a memorial garden.

The harbour was also used for the world-famous luxury train service the Orient Express.

Traces from that era can still be seen through rusting railway tracks, overgrown with weeds, running parallel to Tram Road.

The Venice-Simplon variation of the service was launched on May 26, 1982, and went from London Victoria to Venice via Folkestone Harbour Station, Boulogne, Paris and Milan.

At Folkestone, the train would first stop at a now-gone station called Folkestone Junction near the present Warren Road.

The awkward angle of the adjoining line would make it impossible for the train to turn towards the harbour. So another engine would pull it there from the other end of the train

The service was revived when businessman James Sherwood bought some 1929 carriages at auction.

Passengers would disembark at Folkestone to sail and catch another train in mainland Europe.

Even when cross-Channel sailings from Folkestone ended completely in 2000, the train still went between Folkestone and London – until Brexit.

In April 2023, the operators Belmond announced they were ending the service because of extra border checks - the new Entry-Exit System - set to be introduced later this year.

Alan Taylor, chairman of Folkestone and District Local History Society, says the working harbour employed many people in the town.

“This was about 300, plus the crews on the ships - also people travelling by car would often stay overnight in the town,” he said.

“I think the town has now recovered with the Creative Quarter and the harbour arm, which is a great attraction.”

How Folkestone harbour was created

The germ for the development of Folkestone harbour came in 1804 when Lord Radnor petitioned parliament to build a harbour. That was granted as an Act of Parliament in 1807, partly to provide potential anchorage for warships during the Napoleonic Wars. Two piers were completed, in 1810 and 1820.

Financial problems in the following decades stalled the development of the harbour but the South Eastern Railway Company bought it in the 1840s to develop Folkestone as a rival to Dover for sailings to France.

The ferry service for Folkestone to Boulogne began on August 2, 1843. The harbour branch line, the one still visible from Tram Road, opened on January 1, 1849.

The arrival of the railway meant that over the next 50 years, the new resort of Folkestone grew rapidly and by Edwardian times it had ­established itself as one of England’s most fashionable coastal towns.

Channel steamers sailed to a number of ports on the Continent including Calais and Boulogne.

A new pier, the Harbour Arm, was built in stages over several decades and was completed in 1904.

During the Dunkirk evacuation, in May–June 1940, every boat in Folkestone took part, bringing troops back to catch trains onwards at the Harbour Station. Over nine days, an estimated 35,000 troops and 9,000 refugees were landed and 64 trains left the ­station.

During the Second World War, the harbour was closed to civilian boat usage as part of the war effort.

At the time of the conflict, more than 2,000 long-range shells fell on Folkestone. The Admiralty used part of the harbour for loading landing ships and, as a result, part of the structure was demolished and the materials used to form a landing stage. It was repaired with concrete after the war ended.

In 1945, cargo services returned to the harbour and ferries went to Calais and Belgium. On August 1, 1946, the SS Auto Carrier started transporting cars to Boulogne again.

Cross-Channel passenger traffic resumed in 1946 with services to Boulogne and Calais.

In 1960, the services were carrying more than 800,000 passengers, 438 cars and 276 lorries or commercial vehicles. By 1972, the Folkestone to Boulogne, Calais and Ostend services were carrying up to 1,266,783 passengers, 913,160 cars, 5,633 commercial vehicles and 31,594 lorries.

The downfall of ferries from Folkestone

By the late 20th century Tram Road and Tontine Street had both become one-way to allow easy passage for the increasing number of lorries using the ferries.

Tram Road was used to bring traffic into the harbour and Tontine Street to take it out.

After the cross-Channel service was long gone, Tram Road went back to two-way in May 2014 and Tontine Street in May 2016.

Folkestone Harbour and the Sealink were sold to Sea Containers in the 1980s, as part of the then-Conservative government’s privatisation programme. The ferries were subsequently sold to Stena Line, which then concentrated its operations at Dover.

During this time there was a gradual decline in cross-Channel services from Folkestone and the threat was intensified with the approach of the Channel Tunnel service, which was formally opened in May 1994.

Adding to the continuing squeeze was the abolition of duty-free shopping in 1999 for passengers travelling between EU countries.

The Calais route was switched to Dover in June 1984 and the nightly Ostend sailings were also diverted there in March 1985.

Stena Line announced the closure of the Boulogne route in autumn 1991 and its last sailing took place that New Year’s Eve.

Mr Taylor was a ship’s carpenter (chief petty officer) for Sealink from May 1970 until December 31, 1991.

He explained: “I took voluntary redundancy because I didn't like the new working conditions Stena was bringing for the staff being transferred to Dover.”

A high-speed catamaran service replaced the ferries in April 1992 but that came to an end nearly a decade later. All cross-Channel sailings from Folkestone ended by 2001.

With all ferry services now stopped, the fishing industry from the harbour also declined. By 2002, only 10 boats were employed in the trade.

Despite other operators such as SpeedFerries and LD Lines having brief attempts to re-establish a direct ferry service to Boulogne, both did not survive.

How Folkestone harbour was revived

The harbour area’s revival began during the 2000s with the development of the Creative Quarter, an arts area around the Old High Street and Tontine Street. That includes the Quarterhouse theatre which was completed in 2009.

The Roger De Haan Charitable Trust was behind that project.

In 2010, a plan was commissioned for the development of the harbour and seafront from architect Sir Terry Farrell and Partners.

Outline planning permission was granted for this in summer 2013.

Clearance of redundant and dilapidated buildings took place in 2014/15, and stonework and original steelwork on the harbour arm was restored.

One iconic moment was in August 2014 when the derelict pilot tower was smashed down by demolition teams.

This helped make the way for the area to be opened up to the public as a new pier and promenade.

The amount of businesses in the harbour area has grown from nine seasonal businesses a decade ago to 72 year-round ones.

Much of the former fairground site, the Rotunda area, is being used for car parking and temporary recreational use whilst preparations continue for the rest of the development.

The transformation is by the Folkestone Harbour & Seafront Development Company (FHSDC), led by multi-millionaire philanthropist Sir Roger De Haan, the former boss of Saga.

FHSDC has outline planning permission for a mixed-use development that will include up to 1,000 new homes.

The first phase of 84 houses and apartments at the western end of the seafront site, Shoreline Crescent, has been completed.

New plans were revealed last year for eye-catching tower blocks on the current harbour arm car park, which Sir Roger admits resulted in a ”brutal backlash”.

The original design was slated as looking “like something out of the Flintstones,” and Sir Roger told KentOnline last November: “There was this outcry from many people who I think didn't realise we already had planning consent.

“They objected to the size of the buildings, the density of the buildings - some of them objected to there being buildings at all.”

Other features of the harbour area, such as interactive fountains and an outdoor cinema screen and boardwalk have already been created.

The boardwalk forms part of a new network of walkways and spaces that connect various parts of the seafront with the coastal park, Creative Quarter, historic harbour, beaches and the East Cliff.

The railway viaduct and Harbour Station have also been restored.

Last summer Sir Roger told this website: “Twenty years ago Folkestone was in serious decline.

“I think it’s made a great recovery. It’s really become a different place.”

A spokesperson for FHSDC now summed up to KentOnline: “Ferry services from Folkestone harbour ceased in 2001 and the harbour arm fell into a state of disrepair.

“Following the acquisition of the harbour in 2004, a team led by Sir Roger De Haan set about investigating how best to regenerate the site and its main structures.

“The muiltimillion-pound renovation of Folkestone Harbour Arm and its station has opened this area up to the general public. Converting the spaces along the pier into small independent bars and food outlets, the harbour arm has become the town’s new social hub.”

Certainly, visitors KentOnline met at the harbour arm this summer have been suitably impressed.

Jonny Flood, of Dartford, said: “It’s very colourful and cheery, which you need at a seaside town.”

Deborah, of Hythe: "They have done a really good job, it's been well maintained and it brings people in. It’s also an excellent use of the space.

“Probably it doesn't bring as many people in as the ferries in their heyday but at least it’s not been left to rack and ruin.”