A James Bond inspired day out

The spy who loved Kent

James Bond may be famous for his fast cars, but his creator, Ian Fleming, also had a soft spot for trains. Who can forget Istanbul’s Orient Express in From Russia, with Love? Or the nail-biting fight on a narrow-gauge train in The Man with the Golden Gun?

Fleming spent weekends and holidays between 1951 and 1957 at a seaside house in St Margaret’s Bay near Dover. Here he wrote many of the best-loved Bond novels and drew inspiration from the surrounding landscapes. Today, you can take the train to the Kentish coast and explore the same dramatic scenery. This itinerary gives you a simple plan for a day out following in the footsteps of both Fleming and Bond.

From London with Love...

Start your James Bond experience with a scenic train ride from London St Pancras to Martin Mill station. The fastest trains take 1h 15mins.

St Pancras stood in for St Petersburg railway station in the film GoldenEye, where Bond girl Natalya Simonova arrives by train.

Martin Mill is the nearest station to the wonderful, white-cliffed St Margaret’s Bay where Ian Fleming once lived. He wrote Moonraker here, a James Bond novel published in 1955, which uses the area as its setting.

There’s plenty to see out of the train window along the way. Look out for the ancient orchards and conical brick oast houses of Kent, icons of the county’s farming and beer-brewing heritage. Don’t miss the views of Dover Castle, which is described in Moonraker as “the wonderful cardboard castle".

Dover Castle

For a smoother day, time your train to coincide with the bus down towards the beach. It’s a 2.5-mile walk along a partly-pavementless road otherwise! Click here to view a map of the route with the bus stops marked on. Bus 93 leaves every 2 hours from Station Approach, less than a minute’s walk from Martin Mill Station (no buses on Sundays, when you could call Dover Cabs).

St. Margaret's Bay

Ian Fleming's house

After about seven minutes on the bus, get off at Bay Hill bus stop and follow the sign that says To Pines down a tarmac path. Fork right onto a path signed Steps to Beach. It’s a pleasant ten-minute walk from the bus stop down to the beach with a steep but pretty climb down some steps. If you’d rather avoid steps, you could follow Bay Hill road instead – a half-mile (15 minute) step-free route with no pavement and some traffic, zigzagging down to the beach.

At the foot of the steps, turn left down to the beach and keep left to see the outside of the striking white house, where Fleming lived and wrote. The house was once called White Cliffs and is now known as Mermaid Cottage.

Ian Fleming's former home

Built in 1929 in an Art Deco style, Mermaid Cottage was damaged during D-Day training in the area. Noël Coward bought the house in 1945, repaired it, and used it to host sparkling parties. Guests included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, as well as Ian Fleming and his wife Ann Rothermere. Mermaid Cottage was put up for sale in autumn 2025 – perfect for the James Bond fan with a spare £1.6 million!

Fleming bought the house in 1951 and was clearly inspired by the landscape. In Moonraker, he describes the beach as “the two-mile stretch of shingle that runs at low tide beneath the towering white cliffs of St. Margaret’s Bay".

Moonraker’s supervillain Hugo Drax is an industrialist who plans to repopulate Earth with his own “master race”. He builds a rocket as part of his evil scheme in a secret research station “on the edge of the cliffs between Dover and Deal".

Time for refreshments? The flint-walled Coastguard pub is almost next door to Mermaid Cottage and serves gourmet pub classics with local ingredients like Docker Bakery sourdough and Canterbury Ashmore cheddar.

Coastguard Pub at St. Margaret's Bay

White Cliffs and Winston Churchill

Stroll back up the lane from the beach, ignoring the footpath (recent rockfall means this path is currently blocked anyway) and keep left, following signs to Pines Garden along Beach Road.

On the right-hand side of the lane, you’ll find the lovely Pines Garden, six peaceful green acres with views of white cliffs, framed by trees and flowers. At the far end of the garden is a bronze statue of Winston Churchill, unveiled in 1972. The sculptor Oscar Nemon was a great admirer of Churchill’s and his bronze likenesses of the statesman can now be found all over the world.

Across the lane from the garden is the friendly Pines Tea Room, serving drinks, cakes, pastries and homemade lunches, sometimes using produce from the garden. Currently open 10am to 5pm Wednesday to Sunday, the tea room doubles as the free St Margaret’s Museum, with fascinating displays about local history including Ian Fleming's links to the area. There are plans to extend this museum across the whole site by 2027.

Opening times can change seasonally. You can check in advance by contacting the Bay Trust (enquiries@baytrust.org.uk or 01304 851737).

Bronze sculpture of Churchill in The Pines garden

View to a Hill

It’s a spectacular 4.75-mile walk from The Pines Tea Room in St Margaret’s Bay to Dover railway station, along the iconic white cliffs. Alternatively, climb back up to the Bay Hill bus stop and catch bus 93, which leaves roughly every 2 hours and runs to Dover’s Pencester Road (30 mins, 12 stops). If you decide to walk, leave at least two hours - or more for sightseeing! Click here to view the map and you can follow the directions below.

Coast Path near Dover

The walk passes South Foreland Lighthouse, which was the first to use an electric light and received the first ever international radio transmission from France in 1899. Along the cliffs, you’ll pass the Fan Bay Deep Shelter, a network of World War II tunnels built to house soldiers working on the gun battery above.

South Foreland Lighthouse

The Port of Dover was a film location for the Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever. Nearby, a sculpture of Ian Fleming was chosen by public vote to be included, alongside Dame Vera Lynn and Olympic-torch bearer Jamie Clark, in a waterfront collection of sculptures. It’s one of many portrait benches, celebrating local figures, commissioned in recent years by the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly known as Sustrans).

Walk directions

Turn left out of the Pines Tea Room (2 on the map) up the lane outside. At a junction of several ways, fork left uphill through a gate and follow the steep grassy path. At the top, turn right along the clifftop path and keep straight to South Foreland Lighthouse (3 on the map).
Keeping the sea on your left, take any path downhill from the lighthouse, soon joining a clear stony path along the cliffs. Continue for 1.5 miles on the acorn-waymarked England Coast Path to pass the White Cliffs Visitor Centre (4 on the map).
Keep on past the visitor centre car park and continue down the lane, with views of the port and Dover Castle ahead. Keep straight down a path and steps, under the main road and follow Dame Vera Lynn Way into East Cliff, past colourful terraced houses.
Turn left across the main road and continue right with the harbour and beach on your left to reach three metal figures, which include a very Bond-like Ian Fleming with a gun (5 on the map). Turn right onto New Bridge Street and keep straight under the underpass signed Town Centre. Head left to visit the museum (see 6 on the map and below).
Keep straight along Cannon Street, turn right past the church and left across grassy Pencester Gardens with more views of the castle. On the far side, turn left towards Dover Priory railway station, keeping straight over the main road at the lights and on along the pavement of Gloucester Road.

Bronze Age boat chase through Dover Museum

Dover’s fabulous free museum is right by the walking route from St Margaret’s, an eight-minute stroll from the Pencester Road bus stop or ten from Dover Priory station. It’s generally open until 5pm, but you can check the Dover Museum website for details. It’s had displays in the past about Ian Fleming and other famous local people.

The museum has lots of interesting things to see including an amazing Bronze Age boat, first discovered in 1992 by local construction workers and then carefully unearthed by archaeologists. Built 3,500 years ago, this well-made log boat is the oldest known seagoing vessel in the world.

Nearby, you could pop into the Vinoteq Wine and Jazz Bar, which serves Bond’s beloved martini alongside local ales and gins.

Dover beach and docks

When you’ve finished exploring Dover, it’s a leisurely fifteen-minute walk to Dover Priory station. There are frequent trains to London, with the fastest taking just over an hour. Ian Fleming used to travel from Dover to London most weeks and the landscapes were a crucial part of his novels. Enjoy the views again as you speed through the Kentish countryside.

And, if that’s not enough, you can also take day trips to these Bond-linked places:

The Royal St George’s Golf Course near Sandwich had Ian Fleming as a member for 16 years and he modelled the golf course in Goldfinger on it. The club is private, but there are public footpaths around the edge if you’re interested and it’s a nice area for a walk. To get there, take the train to Sandwich (1h 15 mins from London) and walk from the station (about 30 mins).
The huge Historic Dockyard in Chatham provided the location for some boat chase scenes in the 1999 Bond film The World Is Not Enough. It also has a tour-able submarine HMS Ocelot, which feels like it should be a Bond location. The dockyard has appeared in 150 different films and TV shows. Take one of the frequent Southeastern trains from London to Chatham (40 minutes), followed by a walk or short bus ride.

For Ian Fleming, railways were associated with romance and adventure. And, as he writes in his children's book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, you should “never say ‘no’ to adventures. Always say ‘yes’, otherwise you'll lead a very dull life".