Richborough Castle 05

Richborough () is a settlement north of Sandwich on the east coast of the county of Kent, England. Richborough lies close to the Isle of Thanet. The population of the settlement is included in the civil parish of Ash.

Although now some distance from the sea, Richborough stood at the southern end of the Wantsum Channel from prehistory to the early medieval period. The channel provided a safe searoute from the continent to the Thames estuary and separated the Isle of Thanet from the mainland.

The channel has now silted up, but prior to this, Richborough was an important natural harbour and was the landing place of the Roman invasion of Britain in AD 43. Until October 2008 there was uncertainty whether this was the site of the Claudian invasion of Britain; two ditches at the site which have been dated to the Roman period were interpreted as defensive structures; however, some archaeologists had favoured the theory that the landing took place in the vicinity of modern-day Chichester. The 2008 discovery proved that this was a defensive site of a Roman beachhead, protecting of coast.

The suffragan bishop of Richborough, in the Diocese of Canterbury, was created in 1995 to provide a second provincial episcopal visitor (after Ebbsfleet) for the Province of Canterbury.

Roman and Saxon history

The Romans founded the site and, after their withdrawal, the site was occupied by a Saxon religious settlement (since St Augustine landed in 597 at nearby Ebbsfleet).

The site is managed by English Heritage who run historical events on the site throughout the summer.

Secret harbour of 1916

During the First World War the capacity of Dover and other nearby ports was found to be inadequate, and a major harbour was constructed at Richborough. Its purpose was to provide the British Expeditionary Force with its heavy equipment (tanks, guns, railway locomotives, ammunition, horses and fuel).

In 1917, the British Government began to look into the possibility of installing a cross-Channel train ferry at Richborough to allow roll-on/roll-off transportation of railway rolling stock, artillery and supplies to the allied Front Lines. This was the first time that sea-going roll-on/roll-off ferries had been used from Britain. Three new train ferries were built , and and operations began on 10 February 1918, conveying nearly 900 tons of cargo at a time between Richborough and Calais and Dunkirk