Westbrook is a Victorian

seaside resort A seaside resort is a city, resort town, town, village, or hotel that serves as a Resort, vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requi ...

on the

Thanet Thanet may refer to: * Isle of Thanet, a former island, now a peninsula, at the most easterly point of Kent, England * Thanet District, a local government district containing the island *Thanet College, former name of East Kent College * Thanet Ca ...

peninsula in the southeast corner of England. It is the westernmost part of

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 ...

and is part of the

ribbon development A ribbon or riband is a thin band of material, typically cloth but also plastic or sometimes metal, used primarily as decorative binding and tying. Cloth ribbons are made of natural materials such as silk, cotton, and jute and of synthetic mate ...

of the north

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 ...

coast.

Westgate-on-Sea Westgate-on-Sea is a seaside town and civil parish on the north-east coast of Kent, England. It is within the Thanet District, Thanet Districts of England, local government district and borders the larger seaside resort of Margate. Its two sandy ...

lies to the west. Running through it is the main Canterbury Road where the

Royal Sea Bathing Hospital The Royal Sea Bathing Hospital in Margate, Kent was founded in 1791 by Dr John Coakley Lettsom, a Quaker physician and philanthropist, for the treatment of scrofula. The hospital was one of the earliest—if not the earliest—specialist orthop ...

stands, although the building is currently redeveloped into apartments. The row of shops opposite the hospital entrance includes Clarke and Crittenden. The Dog & Duck pub has been turned into offices for the Hospital Building site. A chapel stands in the grounds with, in 2024, planning permission for conversion into apartments.

History

Westbrook's parish church is All Saints Church, a

Victorian era In the history of the United Kingdom and the British Empire, the Victorian era was the reign of Queen Victoria, from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. Slightly different definitions are sometimes used. The era followed the ...

church standing on All Saints Avenue. The church was built in 1894 out of

ragstone Rag-stone is a name given by some architectural writers to work done with stones that are quarried in thin pieces, such as Horsham Stone, sandstone, Yorkshire stone, and the slate stones, but this is more properly flag or slab work. Near Londo ...

by a local architect, T. Andrews. The building uses lancet windows and Geometrical Tracery. The nave is clerestoried, with

Lean-to A lean-to is a type of simple structure originally added to an existing building with the rafters "leaning" against another wall. Free-standing structures open on one or more sides (colloquially referred to as lean-tos in spite of being unattac ...

aisles and a lower

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

The two-story southeast vestries were added in 1897 by E. S. Prior, and the southwest tower was added in 1909 by

W. D. Caröe William Douglas Caröe (1 September 1857 – 25 February 1938) was a British architect, particularly of churches. Early life Caröe was born on 1 September 1857 in Holmsdale, Blundellsands, near Liverpool, the youngest son of the List of diplo ...

. The ground story of the tower is

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

dressed, while the top stage mixes Decorated and

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

Gothic styles. Architectural historian John Newman observes the interplay between the smooth and textured surfaces of the tower as being "typical" of Caröe. The tower ends in a recessed tiled pyramid roof. In the east of the chancel, there is stained glass of the Nativity, and in the west of the nave, a stained glass representation of

Te Deum The ( or , ; from its incipit, ) is a Latin Christian hymn traditionally ascribed to a date before AD 500, but perhaps with antecedents that place it much earlier. It is central to the Ambrosian hymnal, which spread throughout the Latin ...

, installed in 1910 by G. J. Hunt. Further glass was installed in the aisle windows from 1905 onwards, and signed by G. J. Hunt in the south as well as Percy Bacon in the north.

Demography

At the 2001 UK census, the Westbrook

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...

had a population of 4,319. The ethnicity was 97.8% white, 1% mixed race, 0.9% Asian, 0.3% black and 0% other. The place of birth of residents was 93.3% United Kingdom, 1.4% Republic of Ireland, 1.6% other Western European countries, and 3.7% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 72.9% Christian, 0.2% Buddhist, 0.3% Hindu, 0% Sikh, 0.2% Jewish, and 0.3% Muslim. 12.9% were recorded as having no religion, 0.4% had an alternative religion and 12.8% did not state their religion. The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 37.4% in full-time employment, 11.9% in part-time employment, 11.1% self-employed, 3.5% unemployed, 2.5% students with jobs, 3.4% students without jobs, 14.1% retired, 6% looking after home or family, 6.8% permanently sick or disabled and 3.5% economically inactive for other reasons. The industry of employment of residents was 16% retail, 11% manufacturing, 7.4% construction, 8.8% real estate, 21.6% health and social work, 8.9% education, 5.8% transport and communications, 5.3% public administration, 4.9% hotels and restaurants, 2.9% finance, 1.1% agriculture and 6.3% other. Compared with national figures, the ward had a relatively high proportion of workers in health and social work, and a relatively low proportion in agriculture, finance, and real estate. Of the ward's residents aged 16–74, 16.7% had a

higher education Tertiary education (higher education, or post-secondary education) is the educational level following the completion of secondary education. The World Bank defines tertiary education as including universities, colleges, and vocational schools ...

qualification or the equivalent, compared with 19.9% nationwide.

Notable people

* Richard Davis (1966–2003), English cricketer who was born in Westbrook

References

Sources

* {{authority control Villages in Kent