Broadstairs
Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms' Latin motto is Stella Maris. The name derives from a former flight of steps in the chalk cliff, which led from the sands up to the 11th-century shrine of St Mary on the cliff's summit.
The town spreads from Haine Road in the west to Kingsgate, a hamlet in St Peter parish in the north, and to Dumpton in the south. The hamlet of Reading Street was established by Flemish refugees in the 17th century.
History
The inland village of St Peter's was established after the building of a parish church in about 1080.The coastal confederation of Cinque Ports during its mediæval period consisted of a confederation of 42 towns and villages in all. This included St Peter's, as a 'limb' of Dover.
On the nearby coast was a cliff-top shrine, the Shrine of Our Lady, at what was then called Bradstow, meaning "broad place".
A fishing settlement developed in the vicinity of the shrine in the 14th century. This came to be called "Broadstairs", after a flight of steps which was made in the cliff to give access to the shrine from the bay. Older forms of the name include Brodsteyr Lynch, Brodestyr, Broadstayer and . Charles Culmer, son of Waldemar, is supposed to have reconstructed the stairs in 1350.
1400–1700
In 1440, an archway was built by George Culmer across a track leading down to the sea, where the first wooden pier or jetty was built in 1460. A more enduring structure was to replace this in 1538, when the road leading to the seafront, known as Harbour Street, was cut into the rough chalk ground on which Broadstairs is built, by another George Culmer. Going further in defence of the town, he built the York Gate in 1540, a portal that still spans Harbour Street and which then held two heavy wooden doors that could be closed in times of threat from the sea. Richard Culmer was the son of Sir Richard Culmer by his first wife and was born in 1640/41.Richard was buried in the parish church of Monkton, on the Isle of Thanet. Of his legacies was the endowment on Broadstairs of an area of six acres of ground for the poor of the parish. The name survives to this day as "Culmer's Allotment" as does the allotment.
1700–1815
In 1823, Broadstairs had a population of about 300. A brief outline of the history of Broadstairs Pier is given in Broadstairs, past and present, which mentions a storm in 1767, during which Culmer's work was all but destroyed. At this time, it was of considerable importance to the fishing trade with catches as far afield as Great Yarmouth, Hastings, Folkestone, Dover and Torbay and elsewhere being landed. It had become so indispensable that the corporations of Yarmouth, Dover, Hythe and Canterbury with assistance from the East India Company and Trinity House subscribed to its restoration with a payment of £2,000 in 1774.By 1795, York Gate needed repair to repel any threat from the French Revolutionary Wars. The subsequent renovation was undertaken by Lord Hanniker in the same year as the first lightvessel was placed on the Goodwin Sands.
On the occasion of the landing at Thanet of Major Henry Percy of the 14th Dragoon Guards, on 21 June 1815 with the captured French eagle standard taken at Waterloo, a tunnel stairway from the beach to the fields on the cliff tops above was excavated, and christened "Waterloo Stairs" to commemorate the event. Broadstairs was supposedly the first town in England to learn of this historic victory, although there is no written evidence of this.
Smuggling was an important industry in the area, and the men of Broadstairs and St Peter's became very good at outwitting customs agents. This was very profitable because of the very high duty payable on tea, spirits and tobacco. There is a network of tunnels and caves strewn in the chalk strata which were used by smugglers to hide their contraband.
Development as a seaside resort
By 1824 steamboats were becoming more common, having begun to make over from the hoys and sailing packets about 1814. These made trade with London much faster. The familiar sailing hoys took anything up to 72 hours to reach Margate from London, whereas the new steamships were capable of making at least nine voyages in this time. Mixed feelings must have been strongly expressed by the Thanet boatmen in general, as the unrivalled speed of the steam packet was outmanoeuvring all other classes of vessel, but it brought a new prosperity to Thanet.The young Princess Victoria and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, were summer visitors 1826–1836, staying at Pierremont Hall. The house was built in 1785 by Samuel Pepys Cockerell for Thomas Douglas Forsyth, and later used as a school and an events venue.
In the middle of the 19th century, the professional classes began to move in. By 1850, the population had reached about 3,000, doubling over the previous 50 years. Due to the fresh sea air, many convalescent homes for children opened towards the end of the 19th century.
Although numerous holidaymakers were attracted to Broadstairs and to other Thanet seaside towns during the Victorian era, it was not directly served by the railways until 1863. This was a time of great expansion for railways in the South East; in 1860 Victoria Station had been completed, followed by Charing Cross and Cannon Street. Rail access to Broadstairs had previously relied heavily upon coach links to other railway stations in the district or region; with firms such as Bradstowe Coachmasters, operated by William Sackett and John Derby, principally involved. Their coaches connected Broadstairs to Whitstable station where a railway service had begun as early as 1830.
In 1841, 44 mariners were recorded as resident in Broadstairs; nine of these being specified as fishermen, and of course the residual boat-building activity that remained after the Culmer White yard closed in 1824, still continued. Others may have been at sea on census day: Steamer Point, as the pier head at Broadstairs was then known, would have been fairly busy with shipping movements since consignments of coal and other produce would have been traded along the coast and there would have been regular work on the steam packet to and from Ramsgate. By the 1840s, the smuggling had ceased.
By 1910, the population had reached about 10,000. A "guide book" of the 1930s by A.H. Simison entitled Ramsgate Pictorially Presented, describes Broadstairs town as having approached modernisation and urban development "always with a consistent policy of retaining those characteristics for which it has for so long been renowned". The town has retained many aspects of historical interest, besides its maritime history. Amongst these is its notable religious history, evoked by places such as the Shrine of Our Lady, Bradstowe.
Morelli's Ice Cream Parlour opened in 1932 and retains its distinctive 1957 refurbished interior.
Governance
Broadstairs is within the Thanet local government district. The town contains the five electoral wards of Bradstowe, St Peter's, Beacon Road, Viking and Kingsgate. These wards have eleven of the fifty six seats on the Thanet District Council. The 2023 Local Elections saw major changes in the political make-up of Broadstairs, with the Conservative Party retaining only four of their previously held eight seats. Four seats were won by the Labour Party, two by the Greens with an Independent taking the remaining seat. Broadstairs and St Peter's Town Council has 15 members, who are elected every four years, led by the mayor.The Member of Parliament for East Thanet is Polly Billington of the Labour Party. She has been the constituency's MP since the 2024 general election.
Broadstairs and St Peter's have been twinned with Wattignies in northern France since the early 1980s.
Geography
The town lies above a harbour with cliffs on either side. It has seven bays of golden sand, which are Dumpton Gap, Louisa Bay, Viking Bay, Stone Bay, Joss Bay, Kingsgate Bay and Botany Bay. North Foreland rises between Stone Bay and Joss Bay.On the cliffs above Kingsgate Bay is Kingsgate Castle, formerly part of the estate of Lord Holland but now converted into private residences.
Broadstairs has a very mild maritime climate.
Demography
At the 2001 UK census, the parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's had 24,370 residents in 10,597 households. Of those households, 34.2% were married couples, 6.7% were cohabiting couples and 8.3% were lone parents. 31.8% of all households were made up of individuals, and 20.9% had someone living alone at pensionable age. 25.7% of households included children aged under 16, or a person aged 16 to 18 who was in full-time education.The parish has a low proportion of non-white people compared with national figures; the ethnicity recorded in the 2001 census was 97.9% white, 0.7% mixed race, 0.3% Chinese, 0.7% other Asian, 0.2% black and 0.2% other. The number of foreign-born residents is relatively low; the place of birth of residents in 2001 was 94.7% United Kingdom, 0.7% Republic of Ireland, 0.5% Germany, 0.9% other Western Europe countries, 0.3% Eastern Europe, 0.8% Africa, 0.6% South Asia, 0.5% Far East, 0.3% North America, 0.2% Middle East, 0.2% Oceania and 0.1% South America. Religion was recorded as 75.3% Christian, 0.4% Muslim, 0.3% Hindu, 0.3% Buddhist and 0.3% Jewish. 14.3% were recorded as having no religion, 0.5% had an alternative religion and 8.6% did not state their religion.
The age distribution was 5% aged 0–4 years, 14% aged 5–15 years, 5% aged 16–19 years, 26% aged 20–44 years, 27% aged 45–64 years and 24% aged 65 years and over. There was a high percentage of residents over 65, compared with the national average of 16%, mainly due to seaside towns being popular retirement destinations. For every 100 females, there were 87.1 males.