Modern Britain

Until the eleventh century the Saxon church in Seasalter was dedicated to St Peter and lay somewhere off the present day coastline. In 1012 the archbishop, Alphege, was captured by Vikings and taken to their encampment at Greenwich, where they hoped to ransom him, although he refused to agree to this. During a drunken feast, the Vikings pelted Alphege with bones, and he was killed by a blow to the head from an axe. He was buried in St Paul's in London, but King Canute decided to return his body to Canterbury in 1023.

The cortege landed at Seasalter, and the former archbishop was laid in the church for three days, before being transported through Whitstable and on to Canterbury. The Seasalter church, as well as another in Canterbury, was rededicated in his honour, with the much later St Alphege Church in Whitstable bringing the count up to three. Seasalter Church was engulfed by a great storm in 1099, which also moved the coastline further inland. To replace the lost church, Seasalter's 'Old Church' was built on higher ground in the twelfth century.

The church continued to serve as Seasalter's main parish church throughout the Middle Ages and into the nineteenth century (the parish church for Whitstable was sited a mile inland, outside of the town itself). The railways came to Kent between 1830 (the Canterbury & Whitstable) and 1860 (the London, Chatham and Dover Railway). By this time the church had become very run down, and the fishing trade over in Whitstable had expanded greatly in importance, especially with direct railway access to Canterbury, drawing people away from Seasalter.

It was clear that a church was needed nearer to the main body of the congregation in Whitstable. In 1844 the first stone was laid for the new St Alphege Church on the High Street, which was intended to be a replacement building. The fate for the Old Church was quite different. The front section, containing the nave, was demolished, leaving only the tiny chancel and sanctuary, which survive today. A small tower to house a single bell was added above the new main doors.

By 1900, the Old Church was no longer being mentioned in the church magazine, showing that it had been completely displaced by the new church. In the twenty-first century the situation for the church became much more hopeful. A huge house-building programme covered the grass hills between Seasalter and Whitstable with new buildings, and the church found a new lease of life with an increased congregation. Still sitting in a green and leafy location, the nearest houses do not intrude at all into the peacefulness of the churchyard.