Betteshanger is a village near

Deal A deal, or deals may refer to: Places United States * Deal, New Jersey, a borough * Deal, Pennsylvania, an unincorporated community * Deal Lake, New Jersey Elsewhere * Deal Island (Tasmania), Australia * Deal, Kent, a town in England * Deal, ...

in East

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. It gave its name to the largest of the four chief

collieries Coal mining is the process of resource extraction, extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its Energy value of coal, energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use c ...

of the Kent coalfield. The population of the village is included 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 authorit ...

of Northbourne.

Before the coal mine

Betteshanger parish (with variation 'Betleshangre') has existed at least since Domesday times. It remained a small scattered parish until the advent of the Kent Coalfield. St Mary's Church sits almost alone in woodland in the centre of the parish. At 'Little Betteshanger' a cluster of houses surround Betteshanger Farm and are very close to Northbourne Primary School.

Mining in Betteshanger

Betteshanger Colliery opened in the late 1920s and was the largest of the Kent collieries. Miners from other coalfields travelled to Deal in the hope of finding work at the new pit, and many lodging houses, cafes and pubs in Deal put up signs saying "no miners" owing to fear of the arrival of the often dirty men who spoke very different dialects. It had two shafts of almost 2,300 feet, plaques can still be seen where the shafts were once sunk. The colliery was served by a railway branch which left the main line between Deal & Sandwich. Betteshanger had a tradition of union militancy. Many of the miners who moved to Kent to work at Betteshanger had been blacklisted in their home areas after the 1926 strike, so there was a high proportion of "hardline union men". It was the first pit to come out on strike during the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

and took active part in the miners' strikes of

1969 This year is notable for Apollo 11's first landing on the moon. Events January * January 4 – The Government of Spain hands over Ifni to Morocco. * January 5 **Ariana Afghan Airlines Flight 701 crashes into a house on its approach to ...

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using mean solar tim ...

, 1974 and 1984/85. A sit-in was staged at the colliery in 1984 and those involved were sacked for trespass.Dover Museum – Betteshanger Colliery
/ref> The Kent Area's NUM initially refused to return to work until those sacked were reinstated and continued to picket the rest of the country after the NUM's national executive had voted to return to work, so Betteshanger was actually the last pit in Britain to return to work after the strike. Thereafter, Betteshanger became known for the brutality with which strikebreakers were treated. Posters had gone up in the village with photographs and names of the 30 men who had broken the strike. It was the last Kent colliery to close, closing for good in 1989. 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 ...

that links up the coalfield parishes of East Kent.

Village layout

The miners' houses were laid out in three streets: Circular Road, Northway and Broad Lane. Circular Road, often known simply as 'the circle' is in fact oval in shape and is a one-way street. Houses have even numbers on inside of the circle, and odd on the outside. Northway connects the circle with the rest of the world and is a short

two-way street A two-way street is a street that allows vehicles to travel in both directions. On most two-way streets, especially main streets, a line is painted down the middle of the road to remind drivers to stay on their side of the road. Sometimes one por ...

. As a road Broad Lane predates the coal mine and has miners' houses on just one side. Additionally, the former village shop is now a domestic dwelling and although numbered as part of Circular Road, sits on an unnamed stub-road which used to serve as the entrance to the colliery itself.

Betteshanger Park Development

With support from South East England Development Agency (SEEDA), as part of the National Coalfields Programme (NCP) a children's play area, including play equipment and a skateboard ramp, and more recently an industrial park, have opened on the site of the former colliery.

Betteshanger Park Betteshanger Park (formerly Fowlmead Country Park and Betteshanger Country Park) is a park near Deal, in Kent, England. It covers the site of a former colliery spoil tip. History This park is situated on the site of a former spoil tip of the ...

has also been developed on a former

spoil tip A spoil tip (also called a boney pile, culm bank, gob pile, waste tip or bing) is a pile built of accumulated ''spoil'' – waste material removed during mining. These waste materials are typically composed of shale, as well as smaller quant ...

(on the north of the site). Current plans for Betteshanger Industrial Park is the proposal from

Hadlow College Hadlow College is a further and higher education college in Hadlow, Kent, England, with a satellite site in Greenwich. The curriculum primarily covers land-based subjects including Agriculture, Horticulture, Conservation and Wildlife Managem ...

to set up the agricultural centre, creating more than 1,000 jobs. But this is still yet to be confirmed. Local opposition to this proposal, wants to turn the site into a charitable trust with the development of free enterprise formulas and continued growth of the site.

Betteshanger Sustainable Parks

Launched on 6 November at the House of Commons, this £40m scheme will re-develop the site of the former colliery and create approximately 1,000 jobs in the local area. It is planned that Betteshanger Sustainable Parks, a scheme bringing together

, Dover District Council, the

Homes and Communities Agency Homes England is the non-departmental public body that funds new affordable housing in England. It was founded on 1 January 2018 to replace the Homes and Communities Agency (HCA). HCA in turn was established by the Housing and Regeneration Act 2 ...

and Kent County Council will generate green energy together with a Mining Heritage Museum, Visitor Centre and Sustainable Education Centre. In total, the Betteshanger Sustainable Education and Business Incubation Centre will provide 2,000 square metres of internal space and provide an incubation service for fledgling businesses. The Business and Commercial Park will comprise 6,700 square metres of internal space. The development which, prior to launch in November 2013, took four years of preparation is a UK first, and aims to help regenerate Dover district, as well as the wider East Kent communities. It is planned that the project will start on site in summer 2015 and open in spring 2016. The Kent Mining Museum is scheduled to open in summer 2016

Betteshanger Summer School

Betteshanger occupies an important place in the history and development of organic and biodynamic farming. It was the bridge between these two forms of agriculture. The 'Betteshanger Summer School and Conference on Biodynamic Farming' was held in July 1939. It was the first

biodynamic agriculture Biodynamic agriculture is a form of alternative agriculture based on pseudo-scientific and esoteric concepts initially developed in 1924 by Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925). It was the first of the organic farming movements. It treats soil fertility ...

conference to be held in Britain.

Ehrenfried Pfeiffer Ehrenfried Pfeiffer (19 February 1899 – 30 November 1961) was a German scientist, soil scientist, leading advocate of biodynamic agriculture, anthroposophist and student of Rudolf Steiner. Life Ehrenfried Pfeiffer began work with Rudolf S ...

travelled from Switzerland to be the lead presenter at the summer school which was held at the farm of

Lord Northbourne Baron Northbourne, of Betteshanger in the County of Kent, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1884 for Sir Walter James, 2nd Baronet, who had earlier represented Kingston upon Hull in the House of Commons as a Con ...

. The following year Northbourne presented and expanded on these ideas for a British audience in his book 'Look to the Land' in which he introduced the term '

organic farming Organic farming, also known as ecological farming or biological farming,Labelling, article 30 o''Regulation (EU) 2018/848 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 2018 on organic production and labelling of organic products and re ...

'.Paull, John (2011
"The Betteshanger Summer School: Missing link between biodynamic agriculture and organic farming"
Journal of Organic Systems, 6(2):13–26.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Kent Dover District