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Plucks Gutter | |
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The Dog and Duck pub, Plucks Gutter | |
Location within Kent | |
OS grid reference | TR2663 |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | Canterbury |
Postcode district | CT3 |
Police | Kent |
Fire | Kent |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
Plucks Gutter is a hamlet in the civil parish of Stourmouth, Kent, England. The hamlet is situated where the Little Stour and Great Stour rivers meet.
The hamlet is named after a Dutch Drainage Engineer called Ploeg, whose grave is in All Saints Church, West Stourmouth. Ploeg, being the Dutch for a plough, the hamlet takes its origins from the Dutch Protestant tradition of draining marshland by creating a ploughed ditch.[ citation needed ]
A mile upstream from the Dog and Duck Inn public house is 'Blood Point', where King Alfred's defeated a Viking invasion force and often taken[ by whom? ] to be the Royal Navy's first successful engagement of a foe.[ citation needed ]
During the Middle Ages, the two rivers met the Wantsum Channel at Stourmouth, but the combined rivers now (called the River Stour downstream from Plucks Gutter) flow onward to the sea via Sandwich to Pegwell Bay near Ramsgate, leaving Plucks Gutter six miles in a straight line and ten by river from the English Channel.[ citation needed ]
In 1821–23, a North Kent Gang of smugglers used Pluck's Gutter. One account[ where? ] from a Revenue Officer stated they travelled fourteen miles on foot, through Trenleypark Wood to Stodmarsh, then via Grove Corner to Pluck's Gutter, where they crossed the river by the ferry, and onward north-east to Mount Pleasant near Acol, then to Marsh Bay – the former name for what is modern-day Westgate-on-Sea.[ citation needed ]
In the hamlet is a riverside inn with a holiday caravan and lodge park, and facilities for non-residential riverside moorings. [1]
The old ferry cottage (an earlier public house), is the eponymous 'House at Plucks Gutter' and was the inspiration for the book of the same name by Manning Coles. The freeholder of the cottage has an obligation to provide services to any officer of one of 'His Majesty's Ships of War' lying in the Wantsum Channel as payment to the Crown for the rights to operate the ferry.[ citation needed ]
Fishing on the river is controlled by the Wantsum Angling Association and Plucks Gutter is a location for fishing competitions;[ citation needed ] Pike, bream and roach are most commonly caught, with ducks, swans and kingfishers seen.[ citation needed ] Representatives from two of local rowing clubs (Kent College Canterbury Rowing Club and Spitfire Boat Club), undergoing medium- to long- distance inland water "steady state" training.[ citation needed ]
River trips run from Sandwich to Plucks Gutter.[ citation needed ]
The hamlet is served by local buses each weekday (other than Bank Holidays), from Canterbury to Westwood Cross Shopping Centre via Wingham and Minster railway station. The nearest railway stations are at Minster (with services to Ramsgate, Ashford, London Charing Cross and London St Pancras), [2] and Birchington (with services to Ramsgate, Faversham, Medway, Victoria & St Pancras). [3]
Dover is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at 33 kilometres (21 mi) from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. The town is the administrative centre of the Dover District and home of the Port of Dover.
Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval buildings, including several listed public houses and gates in the old town walls, churches, almshouses and the White Mill. While once a major port, it is now two miles from the sea due to the disappearance of the Wantsum Channel. Its historic centre has been preserved. Sandwich Bay is home to nature reserves and two world-class golf courses, Royal St George's and Prince's. The town is also home to many educational and cultural events. Sandwich also gave its name to the food by way of John Montagu, 4th Earl of Sandwich, and the word sandwich is now found in several languages.
The River Stour is a river in Kent, England that flows into the North Sea at Pegwell Bay. Above Plucks Gutter, where the Little Stour joins it, the river is normally known as the Great Stour. The upper section of the river, above its confluence with the East Stour at Ashford is sometimes known as the Upper Great Stour or West Stour. In the tidal lower reaches, the artificial Stonar Cut short cuts a large loop in the natural river.
Minster, also known as Minster-in-Thanet, is a village and civil parish in the Thanet District of Kent, England. It is the site of Minster in Thanet Priory. The village is west of Ramsgate and to the north east of Canterbury; it lies just south west of Kent International Airport and just north of the River Stour. Minster is also the "ancient capital of Thanet". At the 2011 Census the hamlet of Ebbsfleet was included.
The Isle of Thanet is a peninsula forming the easternmost part of Kent, England. While in the past it was separated from the mainland by the 600-metre-wide (2,000 ft) Wantsum Channel, it is no longer an island.
Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to the Census, there was a population of 40,408. Ramsgate's main attraction is its coastline, and its main industries are tourism and fishing. The town has one of the largest marinas on the English south coast, and the Port of Ramsgate provided cross-channel ferries for many years.
Thanet is a local government district in Kent, England. Formed under the Local Government Act 1972, it came into being on 1 April 1974 and is governed by Thanet District Council.
The Wantsum Channel was a strait separating the Isle of Thanet from the north-eastern extremity of the English county of Kent and connecting the English Channel and the Thames Estuary. It was a major shipping route when Britain was part of the Roman Empire, and continued in use until it was closed by silting in the late Middle Ages. Its course is now represented by the River Stour and the River Wantsum, which is little more than a drainage ditch lying between Reculver and St Nicholas-at-Wade and joins the Stour about 1.7 miles (2.7 km) south-east of Sarre.
Birchington-on-Sea is a village in the Thanet district in Kent, England, with a population of 9,961.
The Chatham Main Line is a railway line in England that links London Victoria and Dover Priory / Ramsgate, travelling via Medway.
The Ashford–Ramsgate line is a railway that runs through Kent from Ashford to Ramsgate via Canterbury West. Its route mostly follows the course of the River Great Stour.
The Stour Valley Walk is a recreational walking route that follows the River Stour, through the Low Weald and Kent Downs, from its source at Lenham to its estuary at Pegwell Bay.
The Saxon Shore Way is a long-distance footpath in England. It starts at Gravesend, Kent, and traces the coast of South-East England as it was in Roman times as far as Hastings, East Sussex, 163 miles (262 km) in total. This means that around Romney Marsh the route runs significantly inland from the modern coastline.
The Guilford Tramway was a narrow gauge industrial railway at Sandwich in Kent, England in the first half of the twentieth century.
Wickhambreaux is a small rural village in Kent, England. The village is just off the A257 Sandwich Road, four miles east of the city of Canterbury. Since Roman times the village has had connections to the Church and the Crown, including being owned by Joan of Kent in the 14th century. The 13th-century parish church of St Andrew stands around a medieval village green along with other historic buildings.
Ebbsfleet is a hamlet near Ramsgate, Kent, at the head of Pegwell Bay. Historically it was a peninsula on the southern coast of the Isle of Thanet, marking the eastern end of the Wantsum Channel that separated Thanet from the Kentish mainland. It is in the civil parish of Minster-in-Thanet.
Stourmouth is a civil parish in the Dover non-metropolitan district of Kent, England. The parish contains the settlements of East and West Stourmouth, and the hamlet of Plucks Gutter.
The University of Kent Rowing Club (UKCRC) is the rowing club of the University of Kent based in the UK at Westbere Lake, Kent. Founded in 1966, the club is entirely run by a student based committee and has regularly competed in competition with moderate levels of success.