HISTORY OF BIRCHINGTON
Early settlement in Birchington
The area around Birchington has a
surprisingly rich history, commencing with a late Bronze Age site which was
exposed between high and low water marks at Minnis Bay. Regrettably, erosion of the coastline has
meant that no visible evidence now remains, but fortunately not before
excavations revealed a plan of some 24 settlement pits and many artifacts.
Until the 14th century there
were two settlements in the area, a small fishing community at Gore End (now
Minnis Bay) and a slightly larger community clustered around the church (in the
Square). Both areas were almost
certainly occupied well before the Norman Conquest and appear to be included in
the Domesday survey as one of the chapels under Monkton’s supervision, together
with the ‘salt beds and a new fishery’.
On the map by Thomas of Elmham, dated c. 1414, Birchington is one of
only three places given a community name, as opposed to a church designation. The name has been given a possible connection
with a Saxon family name, but that has yet to be proved. The idea that the name Birchington comes from
a cluster of Birch trees would seem highly unlikely, since birches usually only
thrive on light sandy soil, whereas the ground beneath our feet here is either
heavy clay or chalk. The spelling of the
village has altered many times over the centuries and there are at least 30
variations in our records.
By 961, Birchington was part of the
Manor of Monkton, or ‘Monks Town’, as all the lands on the western half of
Thanet had come under the ownership of the monks of Christ Church Priory in
Canterbury. The eastern half, with its
headquarters at Minster, was in the hands of St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury. Monkton’s land consisted of marshland,
pasturage, arable, forest and salt-beds with a new fishery lately
included. The Domesday record shows that
in the whole of the Monkton Manor there were about 550 people living in some
110 households. We can only guess from
this how many of them lived in Birchington and Gore End. However, by the time the first census was
taken in 1801 the population for Birchington and Woodchurch was 537. We know by this date that Woodchurch, which
also came under Monkton ecclesiastically, had only about 20-30 inhabitants,
although at the Domesday census, they were on a par with Birchington,
if the size of their church was anything to go by.
There was almost certainly a church
standing in Birchington in 1066, possibly built of wood, which would have been
rebuilt fairly soon afterwards in stone, Evidence for
this can be seen in the outside south wall of the present building, where some
of the re-used stones show earlier workmanship from the early Norman
style. This first building would have
had a simple oblong Nave and Chancel form still seen in unaltered buildings of
this period and shown in the excavations of the lost church at Shuart, just two
miles west of Birchington. The Chancel
was rebuilt and two side chapels were added in c.
1250, together with a tower in the unusual position above the south-east
chapel. The north chapel was paid for
by the family who occupied what is now known as Quex, and unusually, this is
still valid today.
The nave was then enlarged in c. 1350,
by the addition of two half aisles. The
original intention had been to build just a large south aisle ‘like the new
north aisle at St Nicholas-as-Wade’, so a 1343 contract states. This had to be altered in the light of the
devastation caused by the Black Death of 1347/8. The churchwardens also planned to build a new
tower at the SW corner, as the great pillar indicates, but this, too, was
abandoned owing to the Black Death. It
was during this period that the spire was added to the old tower. This still retains its original framework – much
patched and repaired over the centuries with both wood and metal braces.
During the 14th century,
great storms and floods had caused the small fishing settlement at Gore End to
decline. The Black Death reduced the
population numbers in both communities, but especially at the smaller one. These epidemics continued through the
centuries, evidence for which can be found in the burial registers for the
community, which date from 1538.
Gore End and Birchington had become a
non-corporate member of the Cinque Port of Dover, through their connection with
Margate in the 12th century, but because they came under Margate,
they often do not get a specific mention.
This caused some confusion for historians, who assured their readers
that Birchington dropped out of the Federation by 1489. This is incorrect, because the church
archives contain receipts for Birchington’s contributions to what was called
‘Composition Money’, which dated from 1485 and continuing intermittently until
1610. As the name implies, the contribution
was part of a composite one made up of St John’s, St Peter’s, Birchington, Gore
End, Woodchurch and Sarre. In earlier
times Birchington was ordered to supply ‘victuals’ for a boat of the Dover
fleet, while Gore End was to help supply ‘a boat’. This possibly meant supplying some of the crew
for one, or perhaps a small rowing boat that would be needed to ferry the men
out to the bigger ship moored in Dover haven.
Throughout the Middle Ages, the
community in Birchington was tightly clustered around its church. Most of the workforce was farm laborours who
walked out to the farms each day. There
were a few shops in the community round the square, as can be we seen in the
Churchwardens’ accounts, from the rent paid by villagers for the shops owned by
the Church. We know too, from the Court
Rolls of Christ Church Priory held in Canterbury Cathedral, that there were
also a large number of brewers and a few bakers. These people had to buy an annual licence (or
‘fine’) to brew or bake, which was obtained in the ‘Feet of Fines’ held
periodically in Canterbury.
The first Churchwardens’ accounts date
from 1531 and give a fascinating picture of the domestic and social life of the
community. Out of the 13,000 parishes in
England and Wales who hold such records, only a few are as comprehensive and
cover such a long period as Birchington.
The only breaks in the sequence are 1643-4 and 1650-51, caused by the
troubled times during the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. From the church registers, which begin in
1538, we can estimate that the village consisted of some 50-60 households, with
about 325 residents in all.
The village, like most of its
neighbours, was a very self-contained community, particularly as the Isle of
Thanet only had a ferry from the mainland of Kent until the Sarre Bridge was
built in 1723. (Even as late as the
early 1950s, there was still only a ferry at Grove.) Any wanderers or vagrants were dealt with
severely, with the law laying down a period in the stocks followed by a
whipping for the first offence. The
second offence incurred imprisonment and having their ears bored, while the
third could invite the death penalty in extreme cases. The stocks, whipping post and ‘cage’ or
lock-up were situated in the Square, near the churchyard wall. They feature fairly
regularly in the Churchwardens’ accounts, as repairs and replacements
were needed.
For several hundred years, Birchington
was not on the main route into Thanet, but situated on a bye-lane from the
bottom of Brooksend Hill. Maintaining
the serviceable state of this lane was up to residents of the village. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, she
made it a legal obligation of each parish to keep all the roads within their
boundaries in usable condition. Surveyors
of the Highways were to be appointed, who became known as ‘Waywardens’ and the
job was unpaid. The Waywarden was
responsible for organizing a group of men to lend carts and others to collect
stones from the fields who would then be detailed to repair the potholes and
deep ruts. This latter band was often
composed of those who were already on ‘Parish Relief’ (the equivalent of the
dole in modern terms).
In 1662 – slightly belatedly, the bell
ringers of Birchington were allowed to spend 2/- on beer as part of their
celebration for the return of Charles II.
The population suffered from the Great Plague almost as badly as the
great metropolis of London. The
registers make very sad reading during this period, with the burials far
outnumbering the baptisms. There were
also a number of famines, which devastated crops and
left the poor at starvation point.
In 1679 and 1688, the first detailed
maps of Birchington were drawn by the celebrated Canterbury Surveyor, Thomas
Hill. The first map was drawn for St
John’s College Cambridge, when the College was bequeathed Upper Gore End Farm
by Henry Robinson. Hill drew his second
map for John Bridges, who was buying Church Hill Farm, which stood on the site
of Ferndale Court in Canterbury Road, opposite Kent Gardens. Both maps give a clear idea of how compact
the community around the Square was, with only individual farming communities
at East End, South End and Gore End.
During the reign of King William III,
Margate was the nearest port of embarkation for the Low Countries. Because travellers had to wait for a
favourable wind to carry them across the Channel, William would sometimes stay
Quex Park while he was waiting to cross over to Holland on royal business. The house the King stayed in was the old
original Quex Park mansion, with its foundations laid down by 1414, when it was
known as ‘Parkers’ on Thomas of Elmham’s map.
During the latter half of the 17th
century, the village continued to be almost completely self-supporting. Conditions had changed very little over the
centuries, with people still growing their own food stuffs, and brewing and
baking, fattening their pig for the winter and salting down any meat or fish
they could acquire. Some of the women
still spun and wove, though those who could afford to, bought their hardwearing
cloth at the fairs, which periodically came to Minster, St John’s
or St Peter’s. They used the services of
local carpenters, wheelwrights and blacksmiths for their shears, spades, hoes, wagons and carts.
When they needed new homes or major repairs for them, they also looked
to the local tilers, carpenters and thatchers, and of
course, at the end of their lives, the local gravedigger and the parson would
be called in. All of
these people’s jobs can be found in the parish registers under the column
‘Occupation’.
Very few children received any kind of
education apart from the rich, who had tutors and governesses, although there
were a few older women who earned an extra copper or two by opening a Dame
School in their kitchens. As soon as
most children were able to wield a broom or carry timber or water
they were expected to help and would often join their older siblings at work in
the fields or in whatever task their parents were employed. Wages were low and no work meant no pay, as
often happened in bad weather during the hard, cold winters. Recreation time was very limited and all
totally ‘homegrown’. The adults, too,
had very little time to relax and there was no such thing as retirement - you
died ‘in harness’ in most cases.
18th Century Birchington
In 1807 Anna Gertruy Crispe, the last of three sisters from the Quex estate died. In her will she left a 47 acre farm in Acol in a Trust, to provide for a school for 12 village children, which opened in 1708. It was grossly inadequate for the number of children who needed schooling, but it was a start. Eventually, with the help of an act of Parliament, the number was doubled. The Trust also provided help for five widows and paid the indenture fees for apprentices to the many trades in the village. Over 80 of these Indenture Certificates are still held in the church archives. The Trust still functions, giving relief to ten widows and grants to any youngsters in the parish who are in further education between the ages of 16 and 25. It also provides grants for all the local youth organizations who apply.
Through poverty and appallingly low
wages in legitimate occupations, Smuggling became rife. The latter half of the 18th
century records show many references to smuggling in the Birchington area. The village was still quite isolated so there
was plenty of scope for this activity along the lonely coastline between Epple
and Minnis, with its seven ‘seaways’ through the cliffs down to the shore. They made ideal landing places, with some
handy caves scoured out of the chalk, for storing smuggled goods on dark,
moonless nights. These activities continued on into the next century, until the government
eventually removed the huge import and export taxes, which had made smuggling
so profitable.
19th Century – Georgian and
Victorian Eras
By the beginning of the 19th
century, Birchington had been in decline for possibly a hundred years or
more. This was due to several reasons
and was sharply commented upon in William Cobbett’s Rural Ride through Thanet
in 1828. The surrounding farmland was in
the hands of only three or four wealthy families and the businesses in the
village were all very small affairs, employing only one or two assistants at
most. This meant that there was little
or no middle class, which, in turn, led to a pauperized and dependent body of
labourers. The village still came under
a curate supplied by the vicar of Monkton, who was very poorly paid and who had
little standing with the wealthy farmers. However, after the accession of Queen
Victoria, Parliament began to try and address the problems of the poor in both
town and country. People like Lord Shaftsbury
and William Wilberforce began to colour the thinking of their fellows, and
Quakers like Elizabeth Fry and the Rowntree families brought hope to thousands
of underprivileged citizens.
The building of the new road through
West Brook to Margate in 1812 brought the village into much closer contact with
her more affluent neighbours to the east.
The same widening of horizons had occurred when the new bridge at Sarre,
replacing the ferry, had made the way south much easier after 1723. The new advances in health education and
human biology very slowly helped to reduce the mortality rate, particularly
among children, so that the 1801 population of 537 had, by 1851, increased to
885. Most of the men still worked on the
land, but with agricultural wages only around 2/- (10p) a day and the cost of
food very high, there was considerable rioting and breaking of agricultural
machinery, which was replacing the large gangs of men needed to as few as two
or three men. A group of men and women
from the west side of Thanet, including some from Birchington and Acol, went
across to Hengrove Farm to damage one of the ‘new-fangled’ machines. They paid a heavy price for this protest as
they were all convicted and transported to ‘Van Dieman’s Land’ (Tasmania) the
day after Christmas Day 1830.
Following this period, the
public-spirited villagers and the Overseers of the Poor undertook the task of
supplementing the wages of the poor by buying in grain at the market price and
then selling it on more cheaply to the labourers. A small ‘sess’ (assessment or tax) was levied
to cover the difference, but only those who were better paid, including the
local farmers, contributed to it.
In 1849, the little Charity School was
still going strong, but there were as many as another 100 children in the
village receiving no education at all.
It was at this point that the National School movement built and opened
the first purpose-built school in the village.
It stood in Park Lane, where the present school’s car park now
stands. In 1869, the little Charity
School closed down and the funds were initially
diverted to the new school, but as this became better funded, the Trust scheme
was altered to its present rules. By
1855, there were three inns around the Square, two grocers, two butchers, three
bakers and two blacksmiths all grouped around the Square. There were also three windmills on the
outskirts of the village. Horse-drawn
coaches came through from Canterbury and stopped at The New Inn in the Square
(The Three Legged Toad) to refresh the horses after
their long pull up Brooksend Hill.
1863 saw the arrival of the London,
Chatham and Dover Railway and a gradual and dramatic change in the fortunes of
the village. The line was laid through
the open farmland to the north and west of the village and gave Birchington a direct
link with London and the north Kent coast.
Previously in 1846 the railway travelled to Margate via Canterbury and
Ramsgate, so did not affect the inhabitants of Birchington very much at
all. In 1864, just a year after our
section was opened, the Railway Hotel was built (now The Sea View Hotel) and
opened in February 1865. Also in 1864,
the South Eastern Gazette was writing of the
possibility of a ‘building development in Birchington, close to the railway’ –
the Bungalow Hotel was built in 1870 and the Tower Bungalows were all up by
about 1880.
In 1867 the first ‘bungalow’ in England
was built at Westgate by a London architect called John Taylor. The small town of Westgate had begun to grow
up round the railway on farmland two miles east of Birchington. John Taylor’s partner, John Pollard Seddon
had purchased land between the railway and the sea at the time of the great
railway boom. For some reason the
bungalow development at Westgate proved hard to sell, so the two men decided to
try their luck at Birchington. Between
1870 and 1872 they began building their ‘Tower Bungalows’ on either side of the
Coleman Stairs Gap. Perfect privacy was
assured, as there was no public right of way along the cliffs at this
part. The Tower Bungalow Estate thus
developed and expanded over the next ten years and was occupied by professional
men and their families, from London’s artistic and literary circles.
During the summer months, visitors from
London came down to enjoy the quiet and exclusive atmosphere and by 1878, the
name of the station had become ‘Birchington-on-Sea’, which it still is to this
day. In 1879 a stone, wattle and mud
embankment had been built across the ‘lagoon’ at Minnis Bay, which appears on
the 1840 Tithe Map. It was a wedge (or
gore) shaped morass of weedy pools that regularly flooded at very high tides.
This was all that was left of the tiny haven that had once given the community
the name of ‘Gore End’ and had proved so vital in Birchington’s early
history. The new embankment enabled the
land behind it to be drained and used for housing. By 1882, the farmland behind this area at
Minnis Bay was also beginning to be bought up and developed by the Birchington
Bay Estate Co. and the London and Country Estate Co.
By 1871, the population of Birchington, standing at 1110, had increased so much more than her ‘mother’ parish of Monkton, that the new Vicar, the Rev. John Alcock, applied to the Diocese to allow the village to become a parish in its own right. This was granted on the assumption that the numbers would continue to grow. By 1881 there were already 1400 and the local guidebooks now described the village as ‘being even more removed from its noisy neighbour Margate than was Westgate’. Erasmus Wilson of the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital at Margate stated that the area was felt to be ‘an uncontaminated playground for large families and a secluded sanatorium for invalids. A person would consume during any 24 hours, twice as much air at Birchington-on-Sea as he will in the same given time in London.’
During the latter half of the 19th
century, Birchington’s expansion was so rapid that, to meet local demands, we
had three brickfields, one in Park Lane, one at Lower Gore End Farm and the
third at Epple Bay. This last one was
owned by the Powell-Cottons at Quex Park.
A large variety of properties were developed, semi-detached villas of
two and three storeys, terraces and, of course, including the new fashion for
bungalows. By the end of the 19th
century, Birchington had become a busy seaside community, with a large influx
of visitors during the summer months.
Many of these visitors were from a more affluent middle class who bought
houses locally, initially using them from perhaps May until September, and
eventually a number came to live in them full time when they retired. Quite a large proportion of the new houses
that were built were designed to be used as apartments to be let out to
visitors. The owners of many of the
ordinary houses also let rooms during those busy summer months.
20th Century – Modern-day
Birchington
The expansion of Birchington during this
last century has been phenomenal, rising from just over 2000 residents in 1901
to 14,750 by the year 2000. The steepest
rise began in the 1960s, when the demolition of all the boarding schools and
hotels began, followed by a good number of the large older houses. Every site was redeveloped at a much higher
density than before, for example, when Walnut Tree Cottage was pulled down in
1967, (built in c. 1680) it had housed two families. The site now holds 36 flats and a warden’s
bungalow. This pattern has been repeated
through the village. The other common
feature during the century has been the tendency for owners to sell off parts
of their gardens and have additional houses built on the sites. This has had the effect of giving the village
a much denser feeling.
The first large development occurred
just before and just after W.W. 2, when farmland at the south end of the
village was bought by alderman Farrar, who eventually lived in Queen’s Avenue
at Minnis Bay. He had an estate of small
bungalows built on it. These were
followed soon after by the redevelopment of Queen Bertha’s School site, Woodland
Avenue off Park Lane and the Sherwood Estate off King Edward Road, both on
farmland. Then came the flats at Minnis
Bay on the site of the Bay Hotel, the new shops in Station Road on the old
Victorian houses, Ocean Close on one of the brickfields and Woodford Court on
Woodford House School site. These were
soon followed by Carmel Court, on the old house’s site, then the Cunningham
Close, etc and Grenville Gardens, both on farmland sites. When the Station Road development began, one
of the old houses due for demolition housed Birchington’s Public Library, so
this had to be replaced. We were lucky
enough to be given purpose-built one in Alpha Road in 1967, with an art gallery
adjoining it.
The 1970s continued this rapid growth
with Moray Avenue and St Magnus Close growing up where the Beresford Hotel
had stood and Sandpiper Court filling in the last of the Carmel Court gardens. Dane Road extended out further towards Plum
Pudding Island and the Rossetti Bungalow site spawned 7 detached houses. Through the 1980s the listed building called
Kent House opposite Jenner’s old garage was demolished for 5 small properties,
Grenham House School was replaced with Homebirch and
Hunting Gate, while Spurgeon’s Homes gave way to the first phase of the Birch
Hill Estate. In Park Lane, the old
allotments were used for Stringer Drive and Holton Close and then Wanstall
Court was also built on allotments behind Alpha Road car park. Then in 1985, the Bungalow Hotel was
demolished to make way for Bierce Court.
One other memorable addition in 1974 was the Village Centre, built
behind the library and funded by the community through the highly successful
Quexpo fundraising events in Quex Park, between 1970 and 1985.
Coming into 2000, the Central Garage in
Station Road was pulled down to house a children’s home and later two shops,
Wild Air on the sea front was replaced by another block of flats and East End
Piece has become Rosewood Way. There
have, of course, been the usual spate of infilling into large gardens and
several more small developments are in the
pipeline. If Birchington is to survive,
it has got to be allowed to change, but long-time residents want it to retain
its character, with the new buildings harmonizing into the community, not
sticking out like ‘sore thumbs’. The
development at the Queen’s Head Hotel is an example of how a good project can
take shape, with the change from a pub to three town houses. Strangely enough, in the 1679 map, there is
an inn on this site, but by 1840, the Tithe map shows this had been converted
into three ‘dwellings’. This old Wealden house was pulled down and
replaced by the present building in c. 1850-55 as a purpose
built inn and now we are watching history repeating itself once
more. In Minnis road,
there was an empty factory site, which had previously housed the Malt
Houses. This was eventually developed at
this period and became The Maltings and Upper Maltings.
One of the most difficult aspects of all
this influx of new residents is that very little thought has been given to
enlarging the infrastructure of the community.
The water and sewage systems were updated in the late 1970s and early
1980s, but in the 1981 census we stood at 9,628, where as
by 2,001 we were at least 14,750 and still rising. The problem of traffic and parking is an
ongoing one and strangely enough, the other shortage is in petrol stations,
with only one remaining. The shortage of
Doctors in a very cramped surgery has recently been
rectified with the building of a large, well-designed barn-like building on
farmland at the top of Minnis Road.
The other area that still needs serious
consideration is the lack of facilities for the youth of the village. Whether the building of a gym, swimming pool
and indoor games centre would solve this is a debatable point, but with the
size of the present population, it must surely be a possible notion.