Dunkirk is a village and civil parish between

Faversham Faversham is a market town in Kent, England, from London and from Canterbury, next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey in the Thames Estuary. It is close to the A2, which follows an ancient Briti ...

and

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a 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. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

in southeast

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It lies on the Canterbury Road between Boughton under Blean and Harbledown. This was the main Roman road from the Kentish ports to London, also known as

Watling Street Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main ...

Toponymy

The origin of the village's name is still not very clear, but it is understood to come from a house called "Dunkirk", lived in by a Fleming from Dunkirk on the border between

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

and

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

History

In 1800, according to

Edward Hasted Edward Hasted (20 December 1732 OS (31 December 1732 NS) – 14 January 1812) was an English antiquarian and pioneering historian of his ancestral home county of Kent. As such, he was the author of a major county history, ''The History and T ...

, the village was once part of the king's ancient forest of Blean in the '

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Westgate'. Dunkirk's main claim to fame is that in 1838 it was the scene of the last armed rising on British soil, the

Battle of Bossenden Wood The Battle of Bossenden Wood took place on 31 May 1838 near Hernhill in Kent; it has been called the last battle on English soil. The battle was fought between a small group of labourers from the Hernhill, Dunkirk, and Boughton area and a detac ...

to the north of the village. Eleven men died when a band of farm labourers were intercepted by a detachment of soldiers. In 1940 during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the RAF Chain Home radar station in Dunkirk was bombed several times by the

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

. In 2011, the villagers had an official opening of their replacement Village Hall. £230,000 was raised to pay for the new hall.

References

External links

* Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent {{Kent-geo-stub