Churches of the British Isles

Until the eleventh century the Saxon church was dedicated to St Peter and lay somewhere off the present day coastline. In 1012 Archbishop Alphege was captured by Vikings and taken to their encampment at Greenwich, where they hoped to ransom him. 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 returned his body to Canterbury in 1023.

The cortege landed at Seasalter, and the body was laid in the church for three days before being taken through Whitstable and then Canterbury. The church, as well as another in Canterbury, was rededicated in his honour. This original Saxon Seasalter Church was engulfed by a great storm in 1099, which also stripped away the coastline, moving it further inland. To replace the lost church, Seasalter's present 'Old Church' was built on higher ground in the 1100s.

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 a mile inland, outside of the town itself). The railways came to Kent between 1830 and 1860. 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 bulk 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 of 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 bell tower 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. The new houses do not intrude on the churchyard at all.

All photos on this page by P L Kessler.