Plucks Gutter is a hamlet in the

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 below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

of Stourmouth,

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. The hamlet is situated where the

Little Stour The Little Stour is one of the tributaries of the River Stour in the English county of Kent. The upper reaches of the river is known as the Nailbourne, whilst the lower reaches were once known as the Seaton Navigation. The intermittent source ...

and

Great Stour Great may refer to: Descriptions or measurements * Great, a relative measurement in physical space, see Size * Greatness, being divine, majestic, superior, majestic, or transcendent People * List of people known as "the Great" *Artel Great (born ...

rivers meet.

Etymology

The hamlet is named after a Dutch Drainage Engineer called Ploeg, whose grave is in All Saints Church,

West Stourmouth Stourmouth is a civil parish in the Dover non-metropolitan district of Kent, England. The parish contains the settlements of East and West Stourmouth, and the hamlet of Plucks Gutter. The 'Stourmouth' name derives from a village that was at the ...

. Ploeg, being the Dutch for a plough, the hamlet takes its origins from the Dutch Protestant tradition of draining marshland by creating a ploughed ditch.

History

A mile upstream from the Dog and Duck Inn public house is 'Blood Point', where

King Alfred Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

's defeated a

Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...

invasion force and often taken to be the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

's first successful engagement of a foe. During the Middle Ages, the two rivers met the

Wantsum Channel The Wantsum Channel was a strait separating the Isle of Thanet from the north-eastern extremity of the English county of Kent and connecting the English Channel and the Thames Estuary. It was a major shipping route when Britain was part of the Rom ...

at Stourmouth, but the combined rivers now (called the River Stour downstream from Plucks Gutter) flow onward to the sea via

Sandwich A sandwich is a food typically consisting of vegetables, sliced cheese or meat, placed on or between slices of bread, or more generally any dish wherein bread serves as a container or wrapper for another food type. The sandwich began as a po ...

Pegwell Bay Pegwell Bay is a shallow inlet in the English Channel coast astride the estuary of the River Stour north of Sandwich Bay, between Ramsgate and Sandwich in Kent. Part of the bay is a nature reserve, with seashore habitats including mudflats and ...

near

Ramsgate Ramsgate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the district of Thanet District, Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to t ...

, leaving Plucks Gutter six miles in a straight line and ten by river from the

English Channel The English Channel, "The Sleeve"; nrf, la Maunche, "The Sleeve" (Cotentinais) or ( Jèrriais), (Guernésiais), "The Channel"; br, Mor Breizh, "Sea of Brittany"; cy, Môr Udd, "Lord's Sea"; kw, Mor Bretannek, "British Sea"; nl, Het Kana ...

. In 1821–23, a North Kent Gang of smugglers used Pluck's Gutter. One account from a

Revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive reven ...

Officer stated they travelled fourteen miles on foot, through Trenleypark Wood to Stodmarsh, then via Grove Corner to Pluck's Gutter, where they crossed the river by the ferry, and onward north-east to Mount Pleasant near Acol, then to Marsh Bay – the former name for what is modern-day

Westgate-on-Sea Westgate-on-Sea is a seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of Kent, England. It is within the Thanet local government district and borders the larger seaside resort of Margate. Its two sandy beaches have remained a popular touri ...

Amenities

In the hamlet is a riverside inn with a holiday caravan and lodge park, and facilities for non-residential riverside moorings. The old ferry cottage (an earlier public house), is the eponymous ' House at Plucks Gutter' and was the inspiration for the book of the same name by

Manning Coles Manning Coles was the pseudonym of two British writers, Adelaide Frances Oke Manning (1891–1959) and Cyril Henry Coles (1899–1965), who wrote many spy thrillers from the early 1940s through the early 1960s. The fictional protagonist in 26 of ...

. The freeholder of the cottage has an obligation to provide services to any officer of one of 'His Majesty's Ships of War' lying in the Wantsum Channel as payment to the Crown for the rights to operate the ferry. Fishing on the river is controlled by the Wantsum Angling Association and Plucks Gutter is a location for fishing competitions; Pike, bream and roach are most commonly caught, with ducks, swans and kingfishers seen. Representatives from two of local

rowing Rowing is the act of propelling a human-powered watercraft using the sweeping motions of oars to displace water and generate reactional propulsion. Rowing is functionally similar to paddling, but rowing requires oars to be mechanically atta ...

clubs (Kent College Canterbury Rowing Club and Spitfire Boat Club), undergoing medium- to long- distance inland water "steady state" training. River trips run from Sandwich to Plucks Gutter.

Transport

The hamlet is served by local buses each weekday (other than Bank Holidays), from

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

Westwood Cross Westwood Cross is a British, open, pedestrianised shopping centre at Westwood, Kent. It opened in 2005, and since 2008 has incorporated a casino, cinema and bingo hall. History Westwood Cross is situated on the former Haine Hospital site, whic ...

Shopping Centre via Wingham and Minster railway station. The nearest railway stations are at Minster (with services to Ramsgate, Ashford, London Charing Cross and London St Pancras), and

Birchington Birchington-on-Sea is a village in the Thanet district in Kent, England, with a population of 9,961. The village forms part of the civil parish of Birchington. It lies on the coast facing the North Sea, east of the Thames Estuary, between the ...

(with services to Ramsgate, Faversham, Medway, Victoria & St Pancras).Live departure boards for Birchington-on-Sea
National Rail Enquiries

References

External links

* {{Dover Hamlets in Kent