Churches of the British Isles

Herne Bay Cemetery Chapel of Rest lies close to the entrance of this site on the eastern side of the Canterbury Road, immediately south of the Thanet Way and on the northern outskirts of the village of Herne. The earliest burials date to 1871, and in 1880 the graveyard at nearby St Martin of Tours Church was closed. The chapel of rest was opened in 1881. Edmund James Reid (1849-1917), head of the CID, investigator of the Whitechapel murders in 1888, is buried in plot J62.

Broomfield United Reformed Church lies at the south-west corner of Margate Road and The Meadows in Broomfield, which abuts Herne to the east. The church was formed in the 1860s and met in private dwellings. The first church building opened in 1869, as Broomfield Congregational Mission Chapel in nearby Bogshole Lane (now a private dwelling). The current church was built on land bought in 1927, and it opened in 1931. By 2011 it was called Broomfield Church.

Beltinge Baptist Church is at 44 Reculver Road in Beltinge, a district that today is an eastern extension of Herne Bay, at the top of Mickleborough Hill. The area lies within the parish of St Bartholomew's (below), and the Baptist church is one of only two nonconformist places of worship. Mostly developed in the 1930s and 1960s, on either side of the war, Beltinge is a mixture of seaside bungalows and small semi-detached houses and quiet roads, Reculver Road being a main road.

The Parish Church of St Bartholomew, Beltinge, stands at the junction of Dence Park and King Edward Avenue. In 1905 the parish of St Martin's, Herne, extended from Herne itself down to the sea, and the new vicar soon became concerned at the distance some of his parishioners were being forced to travel (usually on foot). In 1906 he launched an appeal for funds to build a daughter church at Beltinge. In 1908 a wooden church costing £452 was erected on the site.

By 1913 enough money had been raised to start work on the permanent building. The work was halted by the First World War and restarted in 1922, taking a decade to complete. The wooden church was taken down in stages as the building of the brick church advanced. The tower was smaller than planned, and the bricked-up arches here show where the Lady Chapel would have been. The church was consecrated on Saturday 30 July 1932, gaining a parish in 1936.

All photos on this page by P L Kessler.