Eastchurch | |
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![]() The Church of All Saints in Eastchurch, Isle of Sheppey | |
Location within Kent | |
Population | 3,022 (2011 Census) [1] |
OS grid reference | TQ988714 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Sheerness |
Postcode district | ME12 |
Dialling code | 01795 |
Police | Kent |
Fire | Kent |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
UK Parliament | |
Eastchurch is a village and civil parish on the Isle of Sheppey, in the English county of Kent, two miles east of Minster. The village website claims the area has "a history steeped in stories of piracy and smugglers".
Eastchurch is styled the "home of British aviation" as Eastchurch airfield saw the first controlled flight by a British pilot on British soil.
The Eastchurch airfield played a significant role in the history of British aviation from 1909 when Frank McClean acquired Stonepits Farm, on the marshes across from Leysdown, converting the land into an airfield for members of the Aero Club of Great Britain.
The Short Brothers, Horace, Eustace and Oswald, built aircraft at Battersea to be tested at the site; later Moore-Brabazon, A. K. Huntington, Charles S. Rolls and Cecil Grace all visited and used the flying club's services. Wilbur Wright and his brother Orville came to the Isle of Sheppey to visit the new flying grounds of the Aero Club. In 1909, Moore-Brabazon made the first live cargo flight by fixed-wing aircraft, tying a waste-paper basket to a wing strut of his Shorts-built Wright aircraft. Then, using it as a "cargo hold", he airlifted one small pig.
The Eastchurch airfield was also the site, in July 1911, of the competition for the Gordon Bennett Trophy for powered air racing, attended by flyers from all over the world and won that year by the American pilot C. T. Weymann. During the Battle of Britain, it was one of the notable bases of the Polish Air Force.
A stained glass window by Karl Parsons in the south side of All Saints' Church, Eastchurch (built in 1432), was dedicated to Rolls and Grace, who were killed in July and December 1910 respectively. The Memorial to the Home of Aviation was unveiled in 1955, in the centre of the village opposite the church.
In July 2009, Eastchurch celebrated 100 years of aviation history associated with the Island. SkySheppey brought together a number of associations and joined with many visitors to recognise the importance of British aviation history which started in Eastchurch. The organisers, the Eastchurch Parish Council, planned the event for 25 and 26 July 2009. Eastchurch is also home to many forms of aircraft and is where they were originally developed in the early 1900s, notably by Short Brothers. [2]
The gatehouse is now all that remains of Shurland Hall, connected with many families including the Cheneys who were there in 1274; and Sir John Stanley, who was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in the 15th century. It was also rumoured to have housed Henry VIII and his wife, Anne Boleyn, for a few nights. For a short period before it was acquired by the Spitalfields Trust in 2006, it was owned by Violet Searle, a business woman who developed an early house within the village in Warden Road. The gatehouse is now in the care of the Spitalfields Trust and in the process of being renovated and restored.
In Hidden Kent by Alan Major (Countryside Books, 1994), there is a note from the 1847 gazetteer commenting on the scarcity of fresh water which "makes the inhabitants very careful to preserve such falls from the clouds" and tells of spouts from the church designed to fill large tubs around it in the churchyard.
Royal Navy Shore Station HMS Pembroke II was RNAS Eastchurch, Sheppey, Kent. An accounting base, it was operational from June 1913 to 1 April 1918 when it was turned over to the RAF. Also known as HMS Pembroke 2, it moved to Chatham as an accounting base from 1940 to 1957. [3] [4] The Shore Station was named after the nearby main base, HMS Pembroke I at the royal Dockyard in Chatham.
Eastchurch is also home to three prisons, HMP Elmley, HMP Standford Hill and HMP Swaleside. The prisons complex is known as the Sheppey Prisons Cluster.
All Saints Church is in the centre of the village, it is a large and extravagant church. Currently, the parish is in interregnum as of June 2016, the previous Parish Priest, Rector Chris Shipley, retired. He took the Parish from the Reverend Father Barry Birch SSC, who had been there since October 2008. His predecessor, Father Francis Searle, was the parish priest from September 2000 until his death in 2007. Father Searle was the grandson of Violet Searle.
The church has undergone the "Jubilee Project", also known as the "tower appeal". This involved bringing down the bells and restoring them (for the first time in 100 years). The tower itself has been modernised and a new floor and room added. This is now known as the "Jubilee Room" and is funded by sponsors such as the Shurland Hotel. [5]
Charles Stewart Rolls was a British motoring and aviation pioneer. With Henry Royce, he co-founded the Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. He was the first Briton to be killed in an aeronautical accident with a powered aircraft, when the tail of his Wright Flyer broke off during a flying display in Bournemouth. He was aged 32.
The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Thames Estuary, centred 42 miles (68 km) from central London. It has an area of 36 square miles (93 km2). The island forms part of the local government district of Swale. Sheppey is derived from Old English Sceapig, meaning "Sheep Island".
The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British Army's Royal Flying Corps to form the Royal Air Force (RAF), the world's first independent air force.
The Royal Aero Club (RAeC) is the national co-ordinating body for air sport in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1901 as the Aero Club of Great Britain, being granted the title of the "Royal Aero Club" in 1910.
Sir Thomas Cheney KG of the Blackfriars, City of London and Shurland, Isle of Sheppey, Kent, was an English administrator and diplomat, Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports in south-east England from 1536 until his death.
Minster is a town on the north coast of the Isle of Sheppey in Kent, south-east England. It is in the Swale administrative district, and within that, in the parish of Minster-on-Sea. According to the 2021 Census, the population of Minster was 17,389.
Lieutenant Colonel John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara,, HonFRPS was an English aviation pioneer and Conservative politician. He was the first Englishman to pilot a heavier-than-air machine under power in England, and he served as Minister of Transport and Minister of Aircraft Production during the Second World War.
Leysdown-on-Sea is a village on the east coast of the Isle of Sheppey, in the borough of Swale in Kent, England. In 2020 it had an estimated population of 936. The civil parish is Leysdown and includes the settlements of Bay View, Shellness and Harty. In 2011 it had a population of 1,256.
Warden is a small settlement on the northeast coast of the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, United Kingdom. The largest residential part of Warden is generally called Warden Bay. The place where the beach becomes inaccessible and the cliffs become prominent is generally referred to as Warden Point.
Tunstall is a linear village and civil parish in Swale in Kent, England. It is about 2 km to the south-west of the centre of Sittingbourne, on a road towards Bredgar.
Transportation needs within the county of Kent in South East England has been served by both historical and current transport systems.
HM Prison Elmley is a local Category B/C men's prison, located close to the village of Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. The term 'local' means that this prison holds people on remand to the local courts. Elmley once formed part of the Sheppey prisons cluster, which included HMP Standford Hill and HMP Swaleside; it is now a stand-alone establishment. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
Royal Air Force Eastchurch or more simply RAF Eastchurch is a former Royal Air Force station near Eastchurch village, on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, England. The history of aviation at Eastchurch stretches back to the first decade of the 20th century when it was used as an airfield by members of the Royal Aero Club. The area saw the first flight by a British pilot in Britain.
HM Prison Standford Hill is a Category D men's prison, located close to the village of Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent. Standford Hill forms part of the Sheppey prisons cluster, which also includes HMP Elmley and HMP Swaleside. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service.
The Short No.2 was an early British aircraft built by Short Brothers for J.T.C. Moore-Brabazon. It was used by him to win the £1,000 prize offered by the Daily Mail newspaper for the first closed-circuit flight of over a mile (1.6 km) to be made in a British aircraft.
Cecil Stanley Grace was a pioneer aviator who went missing on a flight across the English Channel in 1910.
The Short S.27 and its derivative, the Short Improved S.27, were a series of early British aircraft built by Short Brothers. They were used by the Admiralty and Naval Wing of the Royal Flying Corps for training the Royal Navy's first pilots as well as for early naval aviation experiments. An Improved S.27 was used by C.R. Samson to make the first successful take-off from a moving ship on 9 May 1912.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Francis Kennedy McClean, was a British civil engineer and pioneer aviator.
The Drill Hall Library in North Road, Chatham in Kent, England, was built as a military drill hall in 1902, for the Royal Navy as part of HMS Pembroke shore establishment and barracks. The barracks closed in 1984. The Grade II listed buildings of the barracks, which include the Captain's House, a Mess block, the Pilkington Building, the four barrack blocks, the Gymnasium, and the surrounding walls of barracks were then redeveloped as part of the Universities at Medway, a tri-partite collaboration of the University of Greenwich, the University of Kent and Canterbury Christ Church University on a single campus. The three universities share use of the Drill Hall Library.
The Memorial to the Home of Aviation is a stone memorial sculpture at Eastchurch, on the Isle of Sheppey in the English county of Kent. The Grade II* listed memorial, unveiled in 1955, commemorates the early aviation flights from Leysdown and Eastchurch by members of the club that became the Royal Aero Club of Great Britain in 1910, and the air base established by the Royal Navy near Eastchurch in 1911.