11 JUNE 1932, Page 14

Country Life

A RARE SANCTUARY.

England is of an infinite variety that even the bungaloid custom cannot stale ; but there are not many bits of it which are without parallel. There are just two, so far as I know, that may be called unique in the strictest sense of that ill-used word. One is Breckland, the other Dungeness. The inhabitants too are unique. Dungeness is said to be the only place—though I fancy there is another—where that quaint and now, alas, very rare little bird, the Kentish plover, breeds. It is a favourite too of the yet quainter bird the thick-knee or Norfolk plover and of many terns. A place such as thii is worth preservation, even if there is no immediate threat. But Dungeness may be said to be under sentence. It has been marked down by the makers of " concrete mendacities," including shacks and old railway carriages as well as the sort of building that has made Peacehaven notorious. Breck- land is threatened by nothing worse than trees, though they will ruin its peculiar character. Dungeness is threatened by stucco and tiles.

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