Wingham is a village and

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 ...

in the

Dover District Dover is a local government district in Kent, England. The port town of Dover is its administrative centre. It was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the boroughs of Deal, Dover, and Sandwich along with Dover Rural District and most of Eastry ...

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 village lies along the ancient coastal road, now the A257, from

Richborough 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 dist ...

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

, and is close to

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. ...

History

A settlement at Wingham has existed since the

Stone Age The Stone Age was a broad prehistoric period during which stone was widely used to make tools with an edge, a point, or a percussion surface. The period lasted for roughly 3.4 million years, and ended between 4,000 BC and 2,000 BC, with t ...

but only became established as a village in Roman times. The ''

Domesday book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

'' tells us that during

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

times Wingham manor was in possession by the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...

. Wingham was the administrative centre of the hundred of Wingham which included

Fleet Fleet may refer to: Vehicles *Fishing fleet *Naval fleet *Fleet vehicles, a pool of motor vehicles *Fleet Aircraft, the aircraft manufacturing company Places Canada * Fleet, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet England * The Fleet Lagoon, at Chesil Beach ...

. In 1286, Archbishop Peckham founded a college in Wingham; many other buildings in Wingham date back to this time, including the

Grade II listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

'The Dog Inn' and (also listed) 'The Eight Bells'. St Mary the Virgin, the present

Grade I listed In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

church of Wingham, dates from the early 13th century with fabric dating from the Norman to

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the period of Queen Victoria's reign, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. The era followed the Georgian period and preceded the Edwardia ...

s. The

East Kent Light Railway The East Kent Light Railway was part of the H. F. Stephens, Colonel Stephens group of cheaply built rural light railways in England. Holman Fred Stephens was engineer from its inception, subsequently becoming director and manager. The line ...

was built between 1911 and 1917 to serve the new coal mines which were being opened up in the area. The site of the former Wingham Colliery station forming what is now the Grain Harvester's site. Three stations were opened; Wingham Colliery, Wingham Town (now occupied by garages and a scout hut) and Wingham Canterbury Road djacent to the Station Farm Shop Wingham Colliery never opened into production and the line failed and completely closed to passengers in 1948 with the section north of

Eythorne Eythorne is a civil parish and small village located 7.3 miles north-northwest of Dover in Kent, with a combined population of approximately 2,500 residents including nearby villages Barfrestone and Elvington. Although not classed as one of the ...

closed to freight in 1951. Plans and some advanced earthworks had been commenced in the 1920s to extend the line from Wingham Canterbury Road Station to Canterbury via Stodmarsh. The village is also on the

Miner's Way Trail The Miner's Way Trail is a long-distance circular footpath in England, starting at Sholden, Kent. Linking up the coalfield parishes of East Kent. Including; the parishes of Deal, Ash, Aylesham, Chillenden, Eastry, Eythorne, Elvington, Goodnes ...

. The trail links up the coalfield parishes of East Kent.

Community

Wingham is a village serving some light industry but is mostly a

dormitory town A commuter town is a populated area that is primarily residential rather than commercial or industrial. Routine travel from home to work and back is called commuting, which is where the term comes from. A commuter town may be called by many o ...

for

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 ...

and

. There are shops, an Indian restaurant, and The Anchor, and The Dog Inn public houses. Recent village developments include Miller Close, a small number of houses built by The Rural Housing Trust, opened officially by

Princess Anne Anne, Princess Royal (Anne Elizabeth Alice Louise; born 15 August 1950), is a member of the British royal family. She is the second child and only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the only sister of K ...

in December 2007. There had been proposals to expand the close by building another 20 houses on the field adjacent to the existing homes but these proposals have since been rejected by the local county council and the plans withdrawn by the organisation proposing the plans. Wingham has a functional fire station which serves the village and surrounding areas. The station itself was originally located in the High Street next to the Red Lion but has since moved to Staple Road. The station is maintained by

Kent Fire and Rescue Service Kent Fire and Rescue Service is the statutory fire and rescue service for the administrative county of Kent and the unitary authority area of Medway, covering a geographical area south of London, to the coast and including major shipping route ...

and comprises a retained fire crew. Due to the minimal incident activity of the station, there have been suggestions that the station is not required and should be decommissioned to reduce the services operational costs. A recent investment in the station provided a new, improved, fire appliance made by Iveco. This investment has been seen by other, much more active, fire stations operated by Kent Fire and Rescue, such as neighbouring village Aylesham and the town of Sandwich. The town of

Wingham, New South Wales Wingham is a town in the Mid North Coast region of New South Wales, Australia in the Mid-Coast Council area north of Sydney. According to the , Wingham had a population of 5,313. History The first land grant in the area was made at The Bigh ...

settled in 1841, was named after Wingham in Kent and was originally laid out in a similar way.

Wingham Wildlife Park Wingham Wildlife Park is a medium-sized wildlife park situated near Wingham in Kent, UK where it covers an area of 26 acres (13 acres of animal housing area and a further 13 acres of car parking and overflow). In 2011 the species count at the pa ...

is a zoo northeast from the village which houses animals such as

tiger The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is the largest living cat species and a member of the genus '' Panthera''. It is most recognisable for its dark vertical stripes on orange fur with a white underside. An apex predator, it primarily preys on u ...

snake Snakes are elongated, Limbless vertebrate, limbless, carnivore, carnivorous reptiles of the suborder Serpentes . Like all other Squamata, squamates, snakes are ectothermic, amniote vertebrates covered in overlapping Scale (zoology), scales. Ma ...

penguin Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: on ...

lemur Lemurs ( ) (from Latin ''lemures'' – ghosts or spirits) are Strepsirrhini, wet-nosed primates of the Superfamily (biology), superfamily Lemuroidea (), divided into 8 Family (biology), families and consisting of 15 genera and around 100 exist ...

crocodile Crocodiles (family (biology), family Crocodylidae) or true crocodiles are large semiaquatic reptiles that live throughout the tropics in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. The term crocodile is sometimes used even more loosely to inclu ...

meerkat MeerKAT, originally the Karoo Array Telescope, is a radio telescope consisting of 64 antennas in the Meerkat National Park, in the Northern Cape of South Africa. In 2003, South Africa submitted an expression of interest to host the Square Kilom ...

tapir Tapirs ( ) are large, herbivorous mammals belonging to the family Tapiridae. They are similar in shape to a pig, with a short, prehensile nose trunk. Tapirs inhabit jungle and forest regions of South and Central America, with one species inhabit ...

monkey Monkey is a common name that may refer to most mammals of the infraorder Simiiformes, also known as the simians. Traditionally, all animals in the group now known as simians are counted as monkeys except the apes, which constitutes an incomple ...

flamingo Flamingos or flamingoes are a type of Wader, wading bird in the Family (biology), family Phoenicopteridae, which is the only extant family in the order Phoenicopteriformes. There are four flamingo species distributed throughout the Americas ...

reindeer Reindeer (in North American English, known as caribou if wild and ''reindeer'' if domesticated) are deer in the genus ''Rangifer''. For the last few decades, reindeer were assigned to one species, ''Rangifer tarandus'', with about 10 subspe ...

, and

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

. Bus services run between Sandwich and Canterbury, and to

Plucks Gutter Plucks Gutter is a hamlet in the civil parish of Stourmouth, Kent, England. The hamlet is situated where the Little Stour and Great Stour rivers meet. Etymology The hamlet is named after a Dutch Drainage Engineer called Ploeg, whose grave is ...

and

Broadstairs Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of ...

. The nearest National Rail Stations are at Adisham and Aylesham on the Dover-Faversham-London Victoria line.

Surrounding area

Gallery

File:The Old Watchmaker's Cottage complete with scarecrows - geograph.org.uk - 455588.jpg, The Old Watchmaker's Cottage complete with

scarecrow A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin, often in the shape of a human. Humanoid scarecrows are usually dressed in old clothes and placed in open fields to discourage birds from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.Lesley ...

s File:Oast House belonging to Hearts Delight Farm - geograph.org.uk - 467731.jpg,

Oast house An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing (and former hop-growing) areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture. Many re ...

Twin cities/towns

Vert-le-Grand Vert-le-Grand () is a commune in the Essonne department and Île-de-France region of north-central France. The inhabitants of Vert-le-Grand are known in French as ''les Grandvertois''. See also *Communes of the Essonne department Twin town * ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

References

External links

* {{authority control Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent Dover District