Herne Bay is a seaside town on the north coast of Kent in South East England. It is 6 miles (10 km) north of Canterbury and 4 miles (6 km) east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district, although it remains a separate town with countryside between it and Canterbury. Herne Bay's seafront is home to the world's first freestanding purpose-built Clock Tower, built in 1837. From the late Victorian period until 1978, the town had the second-longest pier in the United Kingdom.
Whitstable is a town in the Canterbury district, on the north coast of Kent adjoining the convergence of the Swale Estuary and the Greater Thames Estuary in southeastern England, five miles north of Canterbury and two miles west of Herne Bay. The 2011 Census reported a population of 32,100.
Reculver is a village and coastal resort about 3 miles (5 km) east of Herne Bay on the north coast of Kent in south-east England. It is in the ward of the same name, in the City of Canterbury district of Kent.
The Westgate is a medieval gatehouse in Canterbury, Kent, England. This 60-foot (18 m) high western gate of the city wall is the largest surviving city gate in England. Built of Kentish ragstone around 1379, it is the last survivor of Canterbury's seven medieval gates, still well-preserved and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. The road still passes between its drum towers. This scheduled monument and Grade I listed building houses the West Gate Towers Museum as well as a series of historically themed escape rooms.
Hoath is a semi-rural village and civil parish in the City of Canterbury local government district. The hamlets of Knaves Ash, Maypole, Ford, Old Tree, Shelvingford and Stoney Acre are included in the parish.
Herne is a village in civil parish of Herne and Broomfield, in the Canterbury district, in the county of Kent, England. It is divided by the Thanet Way from the seaside resort of Herne Bay. Between Herne and Broomfield is the former hamlet of Hunters Forstal. Herne Common lies to the south on the A291 road.
The Canterbury Heritage Museum was a museum in Stour Street, Canterbury, South East England, telling the history of the city. It was housed in the 12th-century Poor Priests' Hospital next to the River Stour. The museum exhibited the Canterbury Cross and contained a gallery dedicated to Rupert the Bear, whose creator Mary Tourtel lived in Canterbury. It held regular events and exhibitions of local and national interest. The museum closed in 2018. It has since re-opened as The Marlowe Kit; an escape room, exhibition and creative space.
Gabrielle Davis, Sheriff of Canterbury 2009–2010, is a former Conservative councillor for Canterbury City Council. She is notable for volunteering to head the "defence of our heritage" movement against a vote by Canterbury City Council Executive Committee on 21 January 2010 to close Herne Bay Museum and Gallery and other repositories of local heritage for the sake of saving £112,600 per year.
The Canterbury Roman Museum in Canterbury, Kent, houses a Roman pavement which is a scheduled monument, in the remains of a Roman courtyard house which itself is a grade I listed building. The pavement was discovered after World War II bombing, and has been open to the public since 1946. The museum was established in 1961. It houses many excavated artifacts from Roman Canterbury, including the important late Roman silver hoard known as the Canterbury Treasure, together with reconstructions of the Roman town.
Whitstable Museum is a heritage centre in Whitstable, Kent, with Invicta, one of the world's oldest steam engines, the history of the local oyster trade and historical diving equipment.
The Beaney House of Art and Knowledge is the central museum, library and art gallery of the city of Canterbury, Kent, England. It is housed in a Grade II listed building. Until it closed for refurbishment in 2009, it was known as the Beaney Institute or the Royal Museum and Art Gallery. It reopened under its new name in September 2012. The building, museum and art gallery are owned and managed by Canterbury City Council; Kent County Council is the library authority. These authorities work in partnership with stakeholders and funders.
Herne Bay Pier was the third pier to be built at Herne Bay, Kent for passenger steamers. It was notable for its length of 3,787 feet (1,154 m) and for appearing in the opening sequence of Ken Russell's first feature film French Dressing. It was destroyed in a storm in 1978 and dismantled in 1980, leaving a stub with sports centre at the landward end, and part of the landing stage isolated at sea. It was preceded by two piers: a wooden deep-sea pier designed by Thomas Rhodes, assistant of Thomas Telford, and a second shorter iron version by Wilkinson & Smith.
Hampton-on-Sea is a drowned and abandoned village in what is now the Hampton area of Herne Bay, Kent. It grew from a tiny fishing hamlet in 1864 at the hands of an oyster fishery company, was developed from 1879 by land agents, abandoned in 1916 and finally drowned due to coastal erosion by 1921. All that now remains is the stub of the original pier, the Hampton Inn, and the rocky arc of Hampton-on-Sea's ruined coastal defence visible at low tide. The site is notable for sharing its history with the eccentric Edmund Reid. Reid was previously the Metropolitan Police head of CID who handled the Jack the Ripper case. In retirement he chose to champion the plight of the beleaguered residents of the settlement.
Frederick Christian Palmer, known professionally as Fred C. Palmer, was the main public photographer of Herne Bay, Kent in the early years of the 20th century, working from Tower Studio. He photographed all the civic events in Herne Bay before 1914, and made portraits of the eccentric Edmund Reid, the erstwhile head of Metropolitan Police Service CID who had investigated the Whitechapel murders and then retired to Hampton-on-Sea, Herne Bay. In 1913 Marcel Duchamp used Palmer's 1910 photograph of the illuminated Grand Pier Pavilion as found object art in his Note 78, part of his Green Box artwork. In the 1920s and early 30s, Palmer took over William Hooper's Cromwell Street studio in Swindon, again producing local postcards, photographing prominent people and doing freelance work for local newspapers and the Council.
Eddington was a village in Kent, South East England to the south-east of Herne Bay, to the west of Beltinge and to the north of Herne. It is now a suburb of Herne Bay, in Greenhill and Eddington Ward, one of the five wards of Herne Bay. Its main landmark for over 100 years until 2010 was Herne Bay Court, a former school which once possessed one of the largest and best-equipped school engineering workshops in England; it later became a Christian conference centre.
The Central Bandstand, known as the Bandstand, in Herne Bay, Kent, England, was designed by H. Kempton Dyson in 1924, extended with an art deco frontage in 1932, and refurbished between 1998 and 1999. It is one of the coastal landmarks of the town. When first built, it was a popular venue for visiting military band concerts and for tea dances. Edwina Mountbatten spoke there on behalf of the Red Cross in 1939. In the 1920s and 1930s a red carpet would be laid across the road and up to the stage for the conductor of the brass band to walk from the Connaught Hotel which was directly opposite the Bandstand.
Frederick William J. Palmer, CE, (1864–1947), known professionally as F. W. J. Palmer, was an English civil engineer, structural engineer and surveyor. From 1891 he was Surveyor to Herne Bay Urban District Council. As Town Surveyor between at least 1891 and 1915 he was responsible for arranging the digging up of a great deal of Herne Bay. He organised the reconstruction of all the main roads, saw to the rebuilding of the council offices and Hampton Pier and led the construction of a new sea wall. He led the Sewerage of the East Cliff and nine miles of private roads at the east end of Herne Bay. He designed both phases of the King's Hall, Herne Bay. His works helped to provide employment and to make the town what it is today. Archaeological artefacts turned up by his constant digging contributed to the collection now in Herne Bay Museum.
The Clock Tower, Herne Bay, is a Grade II listed landmark in Herne Bay, Kent, England. It is believed to be one of the earliest purpose-built, free-standing clock towers in the United Kingdom. It was funded by Mrs Ann Thwaytes, and now serves as a memorial to the fallen of the Second Boer War.
St Mary's Church, Reculver, was founded in the 7th century as either a minster or a monastery on the site of a Roman fort at Reculver, which was then at the north-eastern extremity of Kent in south-eastern England. In 669, the site of the fort was given for this purpose by King Ecgberht of Kent to a priest named Bassa, beginning a connection with Kentish kings that led to King Eadberht II of Kent being buried there in the 760s, and the church becoming very wealthy by the beginning of the 9th century. From the early 9th century to the 11th the church was treated as essentially a piece of property, with control passing between kings of Mercia, Wessex and England and the archbishops of Canterbury. Viking attacks may have extinguished the church's religious community in the 9th century, although an early 11th-century record indicates that the church was then in the hands of a dean accompanied by monks. By the time of Domesday Book, completed in 1086, St Mary's was serving as a parish church.
The Church of St Mary the Virgin, Reculver, is an Anglican church on Reculver Lane in the village of Hillborough, in the parish of Reculver, in north-eastern Kent, England. Built between 1876 and 1878, it is the second such church on its site. The first, consecrated in 1813, was a replacement for a church of St Mary that was founded in 669 within the remains of the Roman fort at Reculver, about 1.25 miles (2 km) to the north-east, but was mostly demolished in 1809.
