Eythorne is a
civil parish
In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
and small village located 7.3 miles north-northwest of
Dover
Dover ( ) is a town and major ferry port in Kent, southeast England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies southeast of Canterbury and east of Maidstone. ...
in
Kent
Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...
, with a combined population of approximately 2,500 residents including nearby villages
Barfrestone
Barfrestone is a village and (as Barfreston) a former civil parish, now in the parish of Eythorne, in the Dover district, in east Kent, England. It is between Shepherdswell, Eythorne and Nonington, close to the former pit villages of Elving ...
and
Elvington. Although not classed as one of the former pit villages of Kent, it was only about a mile from
Tilmanstone
Tilmanstone is a small village and civil parish in Kent, in the South East of England, near Eastry, a much bigger and more developed area. Tilmanstone no longer has a village school; however, the independent Northbourne Park School is close to t ...
– which closed in 1986. Today many of its residents commute to work in Dover, Deal and Canterbury.
Eythorne Baptist Church
Eythorne Baptist Church originated in the meetings of early 16th century Baptists who had crossed the English Channel from the Low Countries to Kent to escape persecution. Nineteenth-century Baptist writer J. J. Goadby named Eythorne as one o ...
is more than 450 years old and one of the first Baptist churches in the United Kingdom.
Esther Copley
Esther Copley, Esther Hewlett or sometimes Esther Hewlett Copley (née Esther Beuzeville, 10 May 1786 – 17 July 1851) was an English religious tractarian and a prolific author, publishing children's books, tracts, sacred history and biography.
...
, wife of William Copley, who was a minister in Eythorne from about 1839 to 1843, was a prolific and successful writer of children's books and books on the domestic economy. She died in the village in 1851.
Eythorne once had three pubs; The Crown is still trading, but the White Horse and the Palm Tree are long closed, both now being residential properties.
Eythorne is historically divided into two halves: Lower Eythorne, where the Church of England and Roman Catholic churches are situated, and Upper Eythorne, where the village shop and the Crown public house are located, and where most of today's villagers live. Many reside in the small housing developments that sprang up in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Governance
Eythorne is in the
electoral ward
A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...
called Eythorne and Shepherdswell. The population of this ward at the 2011 Census was 4,815.
Transport
There are buses to Dover and
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...
, located 13 miles away. The nearest railway station is 3 miles away in the nearby village of
Shepherdswell
Shepherdswell (also Sibertswold or Sibert's Wold) is a village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Shepherdswell with Coldred, in the Dover district of Kent, England. In 2011 it had a population of 1630.
Culture and community
Village ...
. The village is on the heritage
East Kent Railway.
Amenities
Eythorne has a post office,
a primary school, a pub and a village shop.
See also
*
Kent coalfield
The Kent Coalfield is a coalfield in the eastern part of the England, English county of Kent. The Coalfields Trust defines the Kent Coalfield as the wards of Barham Downs and Marshside in the Canterbury district, and the wards of Aylesham, East ...
References
External links
{{authority control
Villages in Kent
Civil parishes in Kent