Isle of Thanet

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For the district of the same name, see Thanet (district).
"... a garden indeed, a county of corn but the labourers' houses all along, beggarly in the extreme. The people dirty, poor-looking, but particularly dirty."

—William Cobbett in 1827 when he rode to the Island

The Isle of Thanet is an area of northeast Kent, England. The name Thanet is very old, as the following extract from the Historia Britonum testifies:

Then came three keels, driven into exile from Germany. In them were the brothers Horsa and Hengest . . . Vortigern welcomed them, and handed over to them the island that in their language is called Thanet, in British Ruoihm.

It was one of the islands of chalk left when the sea broke through to form the English Channel in 6500 BC: the others are now beneath the sea. It was left separated from the mainland by what became known as the Wantsum Channel, until the deposition of silt from the River Stour along the coast joined the Isle to the mainland. Today Thanet consists of 26 miles of golden sandy beaches and grade A1 farmland, set on quick-draining chalk sub-soil.

Two thousand years ago Thanet was cut off from the mainland by the Wantsum Channel, which in some places was a mile or two in width. Two branches of the Stour flowed into the Wantsum, at Stourmouth. At the eastern end, the Romans built a port protected by Richborough Castle; Reculver fort was at the western end.

In the eighth century it was reported that the Channel was now three furlongs wide (660 yards, 600 m), and a map of 1414 showed a ferry crossing at Sarre. The first bridge over the channel was built there in 1485. Until the mid 18th century there was a ferry between Sandwich and the island; a wooden drawbridge was built, and the ferry was closed.

The combination of those factors meant that from the 15th century there are only marshes and mudbanks through which the Stour meanders, finally reaching the sea at Sandwich. The Wantsum valley is still liable to flooding, since it is only a few feet above sea level. During the 1953 floods Thanet was cut off for a few days, but the sea defences have been strengthened since then. ¹

Contents

[edit] History

Because of its proximity to France and mainland Europe, Thanet received the first of the Roman invaders in 55 BC. The name 'Thanet' is corruption of the Celtic tan-arth "high fire", suggesting that there may a lighthouse or beacon on the island.

Thanet is notable as the place where the Romans in the time of the Emperor Claudius decided to invade in order to deliver the new Emperor a military success. Richborough at the southern end of the Wantsum Channel was where the fleet landed and where one of the largest triumphal arches in the empire was built. It provided the formal entrance to the Roman road network and Watling Street, and was situated to the north of the present Pfizer complex near Sandwich, Kent.

The Romans crossed the Channel from Boulogne, and legions with some support from elephants were sent to conquer different parts of Southern Britain, meeting stiff resistance from tribes under Caractacus and having to fight two major battles to cross the Medway near Rochester and the Thames, possibly near where the QEII bridge is today.

Following the departure of the Romans, it was in Thanet that Vortigern formed an uneasy alliance with Hengest and Horsa, by tradition chieftains of the Jutes, who led the Saxon invasion in AD 449. By the end of the fifth century, Thanet had become part of the Jutish kingdom in Kent. In this way, Thanet is a mirror of Hampshire's Isle of Wight.

St Augustine is said by the Venerable Bede to have landed with 40 men at Ebbsfleet, north of Sandwich, before founding Britain's first Christian monastery, in Canterbury.

The Vikings wintered on Thanet twice in the ninth century, in 851 and 864. The importance of Sandwich as one of the Cinque Ports in medieval times meant that no fewer than seven places on the Isle were part of the Confederation: Sarre, Birchington, St John's, Margate, St Peter's, Woodchurch and Ramsgate.

By 1334-1335 Thanet had the highest population density in Kent according to Edward III's lay subsidy rolls. It acted as a granary for Calais and documents towards the end of that century refer to turreted walls beneath the cliffs needing maintenance. Coastal erosion has long since destroyed these structures.

As the popularity of the seaside resort grew, so did that of the Isle of Thanet. At first the holidaymakers came by boat from London; after the coming of the railways in the mid 1840s, that became the preferred mode of transport. The population grew, as the following figures show:

Place
Population in 1801
Population in 1861
Ramsgate & St Lawrence
4,200
15,100
Margate
4,800
10,000
Broadstairs & St Peter's
1,600
2,900

Margate has its roots in a name that "Has been variously spelt as Margat, Meregate and in the 13th Century, de Mergate. Indeed 'maris', 'mare' in latin means, 'sea' and "gate" a way in or out of the country. Perhaps the Brooks, now the site of Dreamland, low-lying and fed by springs, did become a lake (sometimes freezing, to give the locals some skating). For another possibility, a monk of Reculver, Ymar by name, had a dying wish to be buried in St Johns Parish Church. Ymar could have become Margate in time. Tradition insists that an old stone coffin lid at the church was his."

[edit] Local government

[edit] Demographic

From the United Nations Statistics Division, a survey conducted in 1996 gives the population as 125543, made up of 59567 males and 65976 females.

[edit] Notes & references

[edit] References

  • Jessup, Frank W.: Kent History Illustrated (KCC 1966)
  • www.roman-britain.org

[edit] Notes

  • ¹ There is a common local Thanet story that the closure of the Wantsum was as a direct result of an Earl of Sandwich deciding to open his sluices to silt the Wantsum so he might own more acres.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

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The district of Thanet in Kent, South East England
with its suburbs, villages, towns and parishes:

Acol • Birchington-on-Sea • Broadstairs • Cliffsend • Cliftonville • Isle of Thanet • Manston • Margate • Minster • Monkton • Newington • Palm Bay • Ramsgate • Sarre • St Nicholas at Wade • St Peter's • Westbrook • Westgate-on-Sea
List of places in Kent

Coordinates: 51°22′N 1°25′E

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