Littlestone-on-Sea is a small coastal village in the parish of

New Romney New Romney is a market town in Kent, England, on the edge of Romney Marsh, an area of flat, rich agricultural land reclaimed from the sea after the harbour began to silt up. New Romney, one of the original Cinque Ports, was once a sea port, w ...

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 ...

, England. It was established in the 1880s by Sir

Robert Perks Sir Robert William Perks, 1st Baronet (24 April 1849 – 30 November 1934) was a British Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician, lawyer, financier, and company director. He was the son of George Thomas Perks (1819–1877), a Wesleyan Methodist ...

as a resort for the gentry, at the point of the local

lifeboat station A rescue lifeboat is a boat rescue craft which is used to attend a vessel in distress, or its survivors, to rescue crew and passengers. It can be hand pulled, sail powered or powered by an engine. Lifeboats may be rigid, inflatable or rigid-in ...

. At low tide, a World War II

Mulberry Harbour The Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the Admiralty (United Kingdom), British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allies of ...

Phoenix breakwater is visible along the coast; the caisson was unable to be refloated as part of the post D-Day harbour construction in

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

, so was abandoned. The nature of the Phoenix breakwaters meant they were constructed and sunk until needed (so as to be invisible to air attack); by design they would have had the water evacuated by Royal Engineers and then been towed to France where they would have become part of the harbour. There is a P.L.U.T.O. or Pipe Line Under The Ocean, station, formerly used to carry petrol across to France during the

D-Day The Normandy landings were the landing operations and associated airborne operations on 6 June 1944 of the Allied invasion of Normandy in Operation Overlord during the Second World War. Codenamed Operation Neptune and often referred to as ...

landings.

''The First Men in the Moon''

Littlestone is the location of Mr Bedford's landing in the sphere in

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

' book ''

The First Men in the Moon ''The First Men in the Moon'' by the English author H. G. Wells is a scientific romance, originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' and '' The Cosmopolitan'' from November 1900 to June 1901 and published in hardcover in 1901. Wells calle ...

''. Mr Bedford leaves the sphere on the beach and enters a hotel. A local boy called Thomas Simmons (the name of an old school friend of Wells) who witnessed Mr Bedford's arrival later enters and takes off in the sphere and is never seen again.

Littlestone Golf Club

The textile entrepreneur Henry Tubbs established Littlestone Golf Club in 1888 on land bought with J Lewis. He built a house next to the course in 1889 to act as a Clubhouse until the current one was finished in 1910. This house, which seems to appear as St Andrew's Villa in the census of 1901, was known then and now as Netherstone. The minutes of the newly formed club committee note that Henry Tubbs as a committed

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

did not allow

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

in Netherstone. His nephew points out that this may be contributing to the slow growth in the popularity of the club. Alcohol was available in the 1930s, as narrated by John Bayley in a memoir of his family's holiday home near the golf club.John Bayley, ''Iris and her Friends'' (2000) chap. 2. Netherstone is still a home, being the only house to have a balcony facing the links rather than the sea. A similar pattern on a grander scale was seen in

Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. north of Charing Cross, nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, London, Whetstone, Mill Hill and Hendon. It is ...

, north London, where Henry Tubbs built Nether Court in 1883. This was ultimately to become the clubhouse of Finchley Golf Club in 1929 after his death, and is still in use as such today.

References

Populated coastal places in Kent Seaside resorts in England {{Kent-geo-stub

''The First Men in the Moon''

Littlestone Golf Club

See also

References