Reculver

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Reculver
Kent

The twin towers of St Mary's Church
Location
Grid reference: TR2269
Location: 51°22’43"N, 1°11’52"E
Data
Population: 135  (2001)
Post town: Herne Bay
Postcode: CT6
Dialling code: 01227
Local Government
Council: Canterbury
Parliamentary
constituency:
Canterbury

Reculver is a village and coastal resort in Kent, about three miles east of Herne Bay. Once and important place, frequented by Roman legions, Saxon monks and the burgesses of the Cinque ports, Ruculver has declined into a little village, but one bearing great monuments of past ages, notably the Reculver Towers and a Roman fort.

This was a strategic location: Reculver stood at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel, a sea lane that separated the Isle of Thanet from the Kentish mainland until the late Middle Ages. This position led the Romans to build a small fort there at the time of their conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and, starting late in the 2nd century, they built a larger fort called Regulbium, which later became one of the chain of Saxon Shore forts. The military connection resumed in the Second World War, when the sea off Reculver was used for testing Barnes Wallis's bouncing bombs.

By the 7th century Reculver had become a landed estate of the kings of Kent and in the remains of the Roman fort was a monastery, established in 669: King Eadberht II of Kent was buried there in the 760s. During the Middle Ages Reculver was a thriving town with a weekly market and a yearly fair, and it was a 'limb' of Sandwich amongst the Cinque Ports. The town declined into a petty village as the Wantsum Channel silted up, and coastal erosion claimed many buildings constructed on the soft sandy cliffs. The village was largely abandoned in the late 18th century, and most of the church was demolished in the early 19th century. Protecting the ruins and the rest of Reculver from erosion is an ongoing challenge.

The 20th century saw a revival as local tourism developed and there are now two caravan parks. The census of 2001 recorded 135 people in the Reculver area, nearly a quarter of whom were in caravans at the time. The Reculver coastline is within a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Special Protection Area and a Ramsar site, including most of Reculver Country Park, which itself includes much of Bishopstone Cliffs local nature reserve. While nationally scarce plants and insects are found there, the location is also important for migrating birds and is of significant geological interest.

Name

The earliest recorded form of the name of this place is the Roman Regulbium, which dates from the early 5th century or before and is in origin from the ancient British language, meaning "at the promontory" or "great headland".

In Old English this name became Raculf. As a Roman town site it attracted the suffix ceaster and appears also as Raculfceastre, which gives rise to the modern "Reculver".[1]

Geography

The soft, eroding sandstones of the cliffs of Reculver country park

The ruins of the Roman fort and mediæval church at Reculver stand on the remnant of a promontory, a low hill with a maximum height of 50 feet, which is the "last seaward extension of the Blean Hills."[2] Sediments laid down around 55 million years ago are particularly well displayed in the cliffs to the west.[3]

History

Prehistoric and Roman

Main article: Regulbium

Stone Age flint tools have been washed out from the cliffs to the west of Reculver,[4] and a Mesolithic tranchet axe was found near the centre of the Roman fort in 1960.[5] Evidence for settlement begins with late Bronze Age and Iron Age ditches.[5] These indicate an extensive settlement,[6] where a Bronze Age palstave and Iron Age gold coins have been found.

A fortlet was built by the Romans during their conquest of Britain, which began in AD 43,[7] and the existence of a Roman road leading to Canterbury, about 8½ miles to the south-west, indicates a Roman presence at Reculver from then onwards.[8]

A full-size fort, or castrum, was started late in the 2nd century. This date is derived in part from a reconstruction of a uniquely detailed plaque, fragments of which were found by archaeologists in the 1960s.[9] The plaque effectively records the establishment of the fort, since it commemorates the construction of two of its principal features, the basilica and the sacellum, or shrine, both being parts of the headquarters building, or principia:

These structures were found by archaeologists, together with probable officers' quarters, barracks and a bath house. A Roman oven found 200 feet south-east of the fort was probably used for drying food such as corn and fish; its main chamber measured about 16 feet by 15 feet overall.

The fort was located on a low hill at what was then the north-eastern extremity of mainland Kent, overlooking the sea lane later known as the Wantsum Channel, which lay between it and the Isle of Thanet: the fort's location thus allowed observation from the fort on all sides, including the sea.[10] It was probably built by soldiers of the Cohors I Baetasiorum, originally from Germania Inferior, who had previously served at the Roman fort of Alauna at Maryport on the Cumberland coast at least until the early 180s, since tiles recovered from the fort are stamped "CIB".[11]

The Notitia Dignitatum, a Roman administrative document from the early 5th century, also records the presence of the Cohors I Baetasiorum at Reculver, then known as Regulbium.[12] There must also have been a harbour nearby in Roman times,[13] and, though this has not yet been found, it was probably near to the fort's southern or eastern side.[14]

The walls of the fort originally stood about fifteen feet high and were ten feet thick at their base, reducing to eight feet at the top, and reinforced internally by an earthen bank.[15] The entrance to the fort's headquarters building faced north, indicating that the main gate was on the north side, facing the eponymous promontory and the sea.[16] The north wall has been lost to the sea, along with the adjoining part of the east wall and most of the west wall. The walls were originally faced with ragstone, but very little of this remains: otherwise only the cores of the walls are visible, consisting mostly of flint and concrete and standing only 8½ feet high at their highest.

Part of the south wall of Regulbium

Towards the end of the 3rd century a Roman naval commander named Carausius, who later declared himself emperor in Britain, was given the task of clearing pirates from the sea between Britain and the European mainland.[17] In so doing he established a new chain of command, the British part of which was later to pass under the control of a Count of the Saxon Shore. The Notitia Dignitatum shows that the fort at Reculver became part of this arrangement, and its location meant that it lay at the "main point of contact in the system [of Saxon Shore forts]".[18] Archaeological evidence indicates that it was abandoned in the 370s.[12]

Middle Ages

Part of the south wall of the 7th-century church

Reculver was part of a landed estate of the Kings of Kent by the 7th century, possibly with a royal toll-station or a "significant coastal trading settlement,"[19] given the types and quantity of coins found there.[19] Other early Anglo-Saxon finds include a fragment of a gilt bronze brooch, or fibula, which was originally circular and set with coloured stones or glass, a claw beaker and pottery.[20]

Antiquarians such as the 18th-century clergyman John Duncombe believed that King Æthelberht of Kent moved his royal court there from Canterbury in about 597, and built a palace on the site of the Roman ruins.[21] However, archaeological excavation has shown no evidence of this and the story has been described as probably a "pious legend".[22] A church was built on the site of the Roman fort in about 669, when King Ecgberht of Kent granted land for the foundation of a monastery, which was dedicated to the Virgin Mary.[23]

The monastery developed as the centre of a "large estate, a manor and a parish",[24] and, by the early 9th century, it had become "extremely wealthy",[25] but it then fell under the control of the archbishops of Canterbury. In 811 Archbishop Wulfred is recorded as having deprived the monastery of some of its land,[26] and soon after it featured in a "monumental showdown"[27] between Wulfred and King Cenwulf of Mercia over the control of monasteries.[28] In 838 control of all monasteries under Canterbury's authority was passed to the kings of Wessex, by the agreement of Archbishop Ceolnoth in exchange for protection from Viking attacks.[29] By the 10th century the monastery at Reculver and its estate were both royal property: they were given back to the archbishops of Canterbury in 949 by King Eadred of England, at which time the estate included Hoath and Herne, and land at Chilmington, about 23.5 miles (37.8 km) to the south-west, and in the west of the Isle of Thanet.[30]

By 1066 the monastery had become a parish church.

Records for the poll tax of 1377 show that there were then 364 individuals of 14 years and above, not including "honest beggars", in the parish, who paid a total of £6.1s.4d. (£6.07) towards the tax.[31]

Decline and loss to the sea

Estate map of Reculver, 1685

The thriving mediæval township depended partly on its position on a maritime trade route through the Wantsum Channel, already present in Anglo-Saxon times and exemplified by Reculver's membership of the Cinque Port of Sandwich later in the Middle Ages.[32] The importance of the Wantsum Channel was such that, when the River Thames froze in 1269, trade between Sandwich and London had to be carried out overland.[33]

Historical records for the channel are sparse after 1269, perhaps "because the route was so well known as to be taken for granted [in the Middle Ages], the whole waterway from London to Sandwich being occasionally spoken of as the 'Thames'".[34] But silting and inning had closed the channel to trading vessels sailing along it by about 1460 or soon after, and the first bridge was built over it at Sarre in 1485, since ferries could no longer operate across it.

When the bridge was built "it was stipulated that the arches had to be big enough for boats and lighters to pass, in the hope that 'the water shall happen to increase'".[35] A late-15th century note in the archives of Canterbury Cathedral describes the motivations for, and the provisions of, an Act of Parliament that gave permission for the building of the bridge: it states that "[r]ecently the channel has become so silted up that the ferry can no longer cross it, except for an hour during the high spring tides."[36]

Reculver was also diminished by coastal erosion. By 1540, when John Leland recorded a visit there, the coastline to the north had receded to within little more than a quarter of a mile of the "Towne [which] at this tyme [was] but Village lyke".[37] Soon afterwards, in 1576, William Lambarde described Reculver as "poore and simple".[38] In 1588 there were 165 communicants – people taking part in services of holy communion at the church – and in 1640 there were 169,[39] but a map of about 1630 shows that the church then stood only about 500 feet from the shore.[40] In January 1658 the local justices of the peace were petitioned concerning "encroachments of the sea ... [which had] since Michaelmas last [29 September 1657] encroached on the land near six rods, and will doubtless do more harm".[41] The village's failure to support two "beer shops" in the 1660s points clearly to a declining population,[42] and the village was mostly abandoned around the end of the 18th century, its residents moving to Hillborough, about a mile and a quarter south-west of Reculver but within the same parish.[43]

The redundant vicarage at Reculver in use as a temporary replacement for the Hoy and Anchor Inn, in 1809

Concern about erosion of the cliff on which the church stood, and the possible inundation of the village, had led the commissioners of sewers to install costly sea defences consisting of planking and piling before 1783, when it was reported that the commissioners had adopted a scheme proposed by Sir Thomas Page to protect the church: the sea defences had proven counter-productive, since sea water collected behind them and continued to undermine the cliff.[44] Before this, according to John Duncombe, "the commissioners of sewers, and the occupiers who pay scots, [had] no view nor interest but to secure the level [ground], which must be overflowed when the hill is washed away."[45] By 1787 Reculver had "dwindled into an insignificant village, thinly decked with the cottages of fishermen and smugglers."[46][47]

{{Quote|[At about this time,] from the present shore as far as a place called the Black Rock, seen at lowwater mark, where tradition says, a parish church once stood, there [were] found quantities of tiles, bricks, fragments of walls, tesselated pavements, and other marks of a ruinated town, and the household furniture, dress, and equipment of the horses belonging to the inhabitants of it, [were] continually found among the sands ...|author=Edward Hasted|title=The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 9, 1800[39]

Reculver towers, framed by the Millennium Cross of 2000 and the King Ethelbert Inn

In September 1804 a high tide and strong winds led to the destruction of five houses, one of which was "an ancient building, immediately opposite the public house, and had the appearance of having been part of some monastic erection".[48] The following year, according to a set of notes written by the parish clerk John Brett, "Reculver Church and willage stood in safety",[49] but in 1806 the sea began to encroach on the village, and in 1807 the local farmers dismantled the sea defences, after which "the village became a total [wreck] to the mercy of the sea."[49]

A further scheme to protect the cliff and church was proposed by John Rennie, but a decision was taken on 12 January 1808 to demolish the church.[50] By March 1809, erosion of the cliff had brought it to within twelve feet of the church, and demolition was begun in September that year. Trinity House intervened to ensure that the towers were preserved as a navigational aid, and in 1810 it bought what was left of the structure for £100 and built the first groynes, designed to protect the cliff on which the ruined church stands.[51] The vicarage was abandoned at the same time as the church, or a little later,[52] and a replacement parish church was built at Hillborough, opening in 1813.

Reculver from the cliff-top

After the sea undermined the foundations of the Hoy and Anchor Inn at Reculver in January 1808, the building was taken down and the redundant vicarage was used as a temporary replacement under the same name.[53] Although it was reported in 1800 that there were then only five or six houses left in the village,[39] a new Hoy and Anchor Inn was built by 1809,[54] and this was renamed as the King Ethelbert Inn by 1838.[55] The sign for the Hoy and Anchor Inn was reported as hanging in the King Ethelbert Inn in 1871,[56] and as being in the Herne Bay Club in 1911.[57] The existence of two other public houses at Reculver was reported at different times in the 19th century, namely the Cliff Cottage in 1869,[58] and the Pig and Whistle in 1883.[59] Further construction work is indicated by a stone over the doorway to the inn bearing a date of 1843,[60] and it was later extended into the form in which it stands today, "probably ... in 1883".[61]

Today the site of the church is managed by English Heritage, and the village has all but disappeared. In 2000 the surviving fragments of an early mediæval cross that once stood inside the old church were used to design a Millennium Cross to commemorate two thousand years of Christianity.

Bouncing bombs

Barnes Wallis and others watching a bouncing bomb prototype at Reculver, 1943

During the Second World War, the coastline east of the village was used to test prototypes of Barnes Wallis's bouncing bomb.[62] This area was chosen for its seclusion,[63] while the clear landmark of the church towers and the ease of recovering prototypes from the shallow water were probably also factors.[64] Different, inert versions of the bomb were tested at Reculver, leading to the development of the operational version known as "Upkeep". This bomb was used by the RAF's 617 Squadron in Operation Chastise, otherwise known as the Dambuster raids, in which dams in the Ruhr district of Germany were attacked on the night of 16–17 May 1943 by formations of Lancaster bombers. On 17 May 2003, a Lancaster bomber overflew the Reculver testing site to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the exploit.

Two prototype bouncing bombs, about 6 feet long and 3 feet wide, lay in marshland behind the sea wall until about 1977, when they were removed by the Army.[64] Other prototypes were recovered from the shoreline in 1997, one of which is in Herne Bay Museum and Gallery, a little over three miles west of Reculver. Others are on display in Dover Castle and in the Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum at the former RAF Manston, on the Isle of Thanet.[65]

Economy

Looking east across the mouth of the former Wantsum Channel

In the Middle Ages, probably beginning in the 11th century, Reculver was one of several members, or "limbs", of the Cinque Port of Sandwich.[66] In 1220 King King Henry III granted the archbishop of Canterbury a market to be held weekly at Reculver on Thursdays, and an annual fair was held there on St Giles's Day, 1 September. The fair was still being held in the 17th century.

In May 1914, Anglo-Westphalian Kent Coalfield Ltd drilled a borehole at Reculver in search of coal, since it had found a seam of coal 48 feet thick at nearby Chislet and was developing a colliery there; possible samples of coal were retrieved from the borehole at a depth of 1,129.0 feet (344.1 m), but it was abandoned, no workable seam having been found.[67]

Today Reculver is dominated by static caravan parks, the first of which appeared after the Second World War. Also present are a country park, the King Ethelbert public house and a nearby shop and cafe.

Reculver was defined as a "key heritage area" in 2008, and there are plans for its development as a destination for 'ecotourism'.

Centre for renewable energy

A visitor centre in Reculver Country Park re-opened in 2009 as the Reculver Renewable Energy and Interpretation Centre, "marking 200 years of the moving of Reculver village".[68]

The centre features a log burner fuelled by logs from the Blean woodland, solar and photovoltaic panels provide electrical power, and there are displays describing the history, geography and wildlife of the area.

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Reculver)

References

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  62. Flower 2002, p. 21.
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  64. 64.0 64.1 Anon. 1997, p. 240.
  65. "People's Museum – Week two gallery The Bouncing Bomb". BBC History. 25 October 2006. Archived from the original on 25 October 2010. https://web.archive.org/web/20101025154929/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/programmes/peoplesmuseum/week2_01.shtml. Retrieved 20 April 2014;  "The Dambusters Bouncing Bomb". RAF Manston Spitfire & Hurricane Memorial Museum. n.d.. Archived from the original on 12 August 2013. https://web.archive.org/web/20130812192310/http://www.spitfiremuseum.org.uk/spitfire/other.htm. Retrieved 20 April 2014. 
  66. Murray 1935, pp. 43–4; Clarke 2010, p. 61.
  67. "Anglo-Westphalian Kent coalfield". Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald. 9 May 1914. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000524/19140509/154/0007. Retrieved 8 May 2014;  "Anglo-Westphalian Kent Coalfield Limited. Present position of Chislet Colliery". Dover Express and East Kent News. 3 July 1914. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000330/19140703/023/0005. Retrieved 8 May 2014;  "Anglo-Wesphalian borings abandoned". Dover Express and East Kent News. 17 July 1914. http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000330/19140717/034/0005. Retrieved 8 May 2014. 
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