Sandgate, Kent

Historical Description

Sandgate, a village and a chapelry within Hythe parliamentary borough, Kent. The village stands on the coast, at the foot of an extensive range of hills, 1 mile S of Shorncliffe, and 1½ WSW of Folkestone, with a station on the S.E.R., 68 miles from London. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. The chapelry is partly in Folkestone parish, but chiefly in Cheriton, and was constituted an ecclesiastical district in 1854. Population, 2251. It has an urban district council consisting of nine members. In 1895 Sandgate and Cheriton were annexed to Folkestone. The village is in the parish of Cheriton. It was founded in 1773 by a shipbuilder of the name of Wilson, grew and prospered as a place of shipbuilding and as a sea-bathing resort, possesses good advantages for visitors, enjoys very salubrious air and highly picturesque and romantic environs, commands a clear and extensive view of the French coast, has undergone much improvement by drainage, by the introduction of a good water supply, and otherwise, and has a church, Wesleyan and Congregational chapels, reading-rooms, a literary institution, a dispensary, a large convalescent home, and numerous charities. Sandgate Castle was built for defence of the coast by Henry VIII. in 1539, gave entertainment in 1573 to Queen Elizabeth, and underwent repairs and enlargement in 1806 to adapt it to purposes of modern warfare. Part of the line of martello towers erected during the war with France is in the neighbourhood. A military camp, called Shorncliffe Camp, was formed on a plateau above the village about the time when the martello towers were (built, was made permanent with the erection of barracks in 1854, forms three sides of a square, and contains accommodation for about 6000 soldiers. The Military Canal commences near Sandgate, and goes thence to Rye. The church is a Gothic structure, and has been well restored. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury. Patron, the Vicar of Folkestone. The area in and around Sandgate has always been liable to landslips, for the soft sandy soil when it becomes saturated with moisture is liable to slide over the impervious clay upon which it rests. A slip which occurred in 1893 led to the demolition of three houses and the injury of about seventy others. A suitable system of surface drainage has since been carried out, and it is believed that the district will thus be protected from a recurrence of such a calamity.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Sandgate from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Sandgate)

Maps

Online maps of Sandgate are available from a number of sites:

• Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• Google Streetview.
• National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
• OpenStreetMap.
• old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
• Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
• A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)

Newspapers and Periodicals

The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the following Kent newspapers online:

• Kent & Sussex Courier
• Whitstable Times and Herne Bay Herald
• Dover Express
• Kentish Gazette
• Folkestone, Hythe, Sandgate & Cheriton Herald
• Kentish Chronicle
• Maidstone Telegraph

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Kent, 1619 is available on the Heraldry page, as is also The Visitation of Kent, 1663-68.