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Former foghorn testing station now a holiday let

BBC A brick rectangular-type building with six black and white foghorns inset is in the foreground. There is a metal tower, a single-storey brick building and a lighthouse in the distance.BBC
Fog Signal Building on the beach at Dungeness is available as a holiday let

A disused foghorn testing station in Dungeness is one of the unusual holiday lets on Kent's Romney Marsh.

Renovated 15 years ago by the artist Fiona Naylor-Johnson, the building played a key role in maritime safety from the 19th Century until the 1980s.

Other holiday lets on the shingle beach include disused railway carriages and a former fuel pumping station.

Rowena Cardwell from letting agency Bloom Stays, which manages the property, said: "People love coming to Dungeness for its unique feel and history."

Rowena Cardwell stands in the window of Fog Signal Building with the beach and English Channel in the distance.
Rowena Cardwell manages the unusual holiday let and said it attracted people who "want to get away from it all"

"By renovating these properties that had fallen into disrepair, we're preserving that history and bringing new people to the area who spend their money in the three pubs and fish shop," she added.

"It's a place to relax and unwind and there's also the extraordinary location and unusual buildings to explore."

The single-storey brick built structure housed compressed air cannisters which were connected to newly built foghorns for testing in sea trials.

Remnants of the building's previous role can be found, including a large structure to the rear of the main building that contains six foghorns, a small gauge railway track, and a hoist used to connect foghorns to compressed air canisters.

Ms Cardwell said the land was previously owned by Trinity House and was most active between the 1950s and 1980s when testing would involve a team on land sounding the foghorns with another team at sea "listening and reporting back the notes and range".

Coastguard lookout station on Dungeness beach with a nuclear power station in the background and a shingle beach in the foreground.
Other unusual holiday properties in Dungeness include disused railway carriages and a coastguard lookout station

The unusual properties are owned by a small artistic community or let out to holidaymakers.

Many cottages have been constructed around disused railway carriages that were sold to employees of the Southern Railway to use as holiday cabins.

The former fuel pumping station used to allow ships to take on diesel while at sea during World War Two.

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