GOODWIN SANDS, famous sand banks off the coast of Kent, lying between the north and south Foreland; and as they run parallel with the coast for three leagues together, at about two leagues and a half distant from it, they add to the security of that capacious road the Downs: for while the land shelters ships with the wind from south-west to north-west only, these sands break all the force of the sea when the wind is at east-south-east. The most dangerous wind, when blowing hard
on the Downs, is the south-south-west. These sands occupy the space that was formerly a large tract of low ground belonging to Godwyn Earl of Kent, father of King Harold; and which being afterward given to the monastery of St Augustin at Canterbury, the abbot neglecting to keep in repair the wall that defended it from the sea, the whole track was drowned, according to Salmon, in the year 1105, leaving these sands, upon which so many ships have since been wrecked.