Sarre 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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in Thanet District in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, England. The village is a part of St. Nicholas-at-Wade ecclesiastical parish, after having lost the local church of St. Giles in Elizabethan times; the ecclesiastical parishes were subsequently combined. In its own right Sarre is an ''Ancient Parish''. It has a population of 130, increasing to 222 at the 2011 Census. Sarre is located at the point where the old 'Island Road' from

Margate Margate is a seaside resort, seaside town in the Thanet District of Kent, England. It is located on the north coast of Kent and covers an area of long, north-east of Canterbury and includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay and W ...

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

crossed 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 R ...

initially by a ferry and from the late Middle Ages by a bridge. The route of this bridge is followed by a short section of the modern A28 and is still marked on some maps as Sarre Wall.

History

Mediaeval

The important late Roman or early

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

'' Sarre Brooch'' was found near the village; it is now on display in the

British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...

(near the

Sutton Hoo Sutton Hoo is the site of two Anglo-Saxon cemeteries dating from the 6th to 7th centuries near Woodbridge, Suffolk, England. Archaeology, Archaeologists have been excavating the area since 1938, when an undisturbed ship burial containing a wea ...

finds), along with many other important early mediaeval artefacts from the same cemetery. The coastal confederation of

Cinque Ports The confederation of Cinque Ports ( ) is a historic group of coastal towns in south-east England – predominantly in Kent and Sussex, with one outlier (Brightlingsea) in Essex. The name is Old French, meaning "five harbours", and alludes to ...

during its mediaeval period consisted of a confederation of 42 towns and villages in all. Sarre was included, under the 'limb' of

Sandwich, Kent Sandwich is a town and civil parish in the Dover District of Kent, south-east England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour and has a population of 4,985. Sandwich was one of the Cinque Ports and still has many original medieval build ...

World War II

In July 1940 the village was turned into a model strong point by the 1st Canadian Pioneer Battalion. Within three weeks the village bristled with defences including fifteen

casemate A casemate is a fortified gun emplacement or armoured structure from which guns are fired, in a fortification, warship, or armoured fighting vehicle.Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary When referring to antiquity, the term "casemate wall" ...

s and a variety of flame traps,

flame fougasse A flame fougasse (sometimes contracted to Fougasse (weapon), fougasse and may be spelled foo gas) is a type of land mine, mine or improvised explosive device which uses an explosive charge to project burning liquid onto a target. The flame foug ...

s and other anti-tank devices. The Canadian commander

Andrew McNaughton General (Canada), General Andrew George Latta McNaughton (25 February 1887 – 11 July 1966) was a Canadian Electrical engineering, electrical engineer, scientist, army officer, Minister (government), cabinet minister, and diplomat. Before th ...

later recalled: "I turned a pioneer battalion loose to fortify Sarre in every possible way. They took ladies' boudoirs and turned them into machine-gun posts without showing anything from the outside; I'm sure they never got the concrete out. There was a big building inside the village that had a hoist for casks. The boys arranged a big barrel of petroleum, with phosphorus bombs inside, that was all poised ready to swing. When a tank came through the village and slowed to make the turn they would just pull a catch and the barrel would smack the tank fair and square and go off with a great gust of flame." While McNaughton was inspecting the defences in August 1940, the village was attacked from the air and three bombs were dropped. A cottage was hit killing one adult and two or three children.

Today

The village has one public house, The Crown Inn – this being known locally as the 'Cherry Brandy House'. A special recipe of Cherry Brandy can be purchased from behind the bar. A second public house, the King's Head, had closed by 2010 and was sold privately. The village mill (

Sarre Windmill Sarre Windmill is a Grade II listed smock mill in Sarre, Kent, England, that was built in 1820. Formerly restored and working commercially, the mill is now closed. History Sarre windmill was built in 1820 by the Canterbury millwright John Hol ...

) was previously open to the public as a working

windmill A windmill is a machine operated by the force of wind acting on vanes or sails to mill grain (gristmills), pump water, generate electricity, or drive other machinery. Windmills were used throughout the high medieval and early modern period ...

. Both the ground floor of the windmill and the mill shop became holiday accommodation. The surrounding buildings, including the Old Bakery and the Old Granary (which was originally thatched), have been sold privately and are now subdivided properties.

References

;Footnotes ;Notes ;Bibliography *

External links

{{authority control Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent