Herne Bay is on the south coast of the Thames Estuary, 6 miles north of Canterbury and 4 miles east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district. The town began as a small shipping community, receiving goods and passengers from London en route to Canterbury and Dover. It rose to prominence as a seaside resort during the early 19th century after the building of a pleasure pier.
About Herne Bay in brief
Herne Bay is on the south coast of the Thames Estuary, 6 miles north of Canterbury and 4 miles east of Whitstable. It neighbours the ancient villages of Herne and Reculver and is part of the City of Canterbury local government district. Herne Bay’s seafront is home to the world’s first freestanding purpose-built Clock Tower, built in 1837. The town began as a small shipping community, receiving goods and passengers from London en route to Canterbury and Dover. It rose to prominence as a seaside resort during the early 19th century after the building of a pleasure pier and promenade by a group of London investors. Its popularity as a holiday destination has declined over the past decades, due to the increase in foreign travel and to a lesser degree exposure to flooding that has prevented the town’s redevelopment. During World War II, a sea-fort was built off the coast of herne Bay and Whitstable, which is still in existence. In 1912, the first Ship Upper Red Lion inn was built in Herne. In the early 1960s, Herne was the site of the bouncing bomb used by the people who conceived the idea of a police box as a police machine for the Doctor Who series. The original wooden pier had to be dismantled in 1871 after its owners went into war. The coastal village ofReculver, to the east of the town, was the testing site of a bouncing bomb during the war, which went into use by the BBC’s Doctor Who team.
The village was first recorded in around 1100 as Hyrnan, which may relate to the sharp turn in the minor Roman road between Canterbury and reculver. The word herne, meaning a place on a corner of land, evolved from the Old English hyrne,meaning corner. In 1833, an Act of Parliament established HerneBay and Herne as separate towns. In this time, passenger and cargo boats regularly ran between Hernebay and London and boats carrying coal ran from Newcastle. During the 1840s, steamboats began running between Hern Bay and London. There was a type of beach boat unique to Herne bay and nearby Thanet, known as the Thanet wherry, a narrow pulling boat about 18 feet long. These boats were mainly used for fishing; however, with the advent of tourism and the decline of fishing, they became mostly used for pleasure trips. The late 18th-century inn The Ship served as the focal point for the small shipping and farming community that first inhabited the town. In 1837, Mrs Ann Thwaytes, a wealthy widow from London, donated around £4,000 to build a 75 feet clock tower on the town’s seafront. It is believed to be the firstfreestanding, purpose- built clock tower in the world. The town’s population grew from 1,876 to 3,041 between 1831 and 1841. The 1801 census recorded HerneBA as having a population of 1,232.
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This page is based on the article Herne Bay published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 03, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
