Holy Trinity Broadstairs is on Nelson
Place, at the junction with Church Road (on the right here), just to
the north of the High Street and close to the beach. Broadstairs
itself was a seaside extension of the village of St Peter's, and as
the population grew, so a local place of worship was required. In
1829 work began to build a chapel of ease to St Peter-in-Thanet,
known as Bradstow Chapel. It was consecrated the following
year. In 1862 a new tower was completed.
A clock was added by Thomas Crampton and the
completed church was known as 'The Petrified Haystack'. In
1866 the chapel became Broadstairs parish church with its own
parish. The church was partially rebuilt in 1915, converting it from a
Gothic box into a Romanesque basilica, but in 1924 the tower was demolished,
despite being secure. The church was further rebuilt and extended but plans
for a new tower were abandoned in 1952.
St Mary's Chapel is on the eastern side of
Albion Street, opposite Alexandra Road. It stands on the site once
occupied by the famous shrine of Our Lady of Bradstowe. The
shrine attracted pilgrims from afar, and dated at least to the
eleventh century and possibly even earlier but not necessarily on
this exact spot. Parts of this building date to the thirteenth
century, but the 1601 plaque refers to its restoration. Now called
Old St Mary's, it serves as Holy Trinity's parish room.
York Street Methodist Church is on the
eastern side of York Road, which leads south from Albion Street at
the High Street junction. No information seems to be available on its
construction, but a date of 1880 or 1890 would probably be close.
Set back a little from the road, the entranceway is now dominated by
the access ramp and an 'airlock' for the air conditioned building.
This work and more was all carried out in 2009, and was officially
unveiled on 2 May.
Queen's Road Baptist Church is on the
eastern side of the road, very close to the junction with the High
Street. The first building on the site was the hall next to the
church (shown here), which dates to 1899, and this served as the first meeting
place for the congregation before the main building was completed in
1907. Then the hall served as a school for a time. By about 1969,
the church's work of serving the local community made it necessary
to expand.
With this expansion in mind a neighbouring house
was purchased and eventually demolished to make way for the erection
of a modern church hall (just visible on the far right of the
previous photo). By 2009 the same problem of a lack of space had
arisen again. It was decided that remaining in the same location was
best, but that the church and halls should be completely stripped out
and totally rebuilt, while retaining the outer shell. The next stage
was to raise the necessary funds.
The Vale United Reformed Church lies to
the south of Queen's Road, midway along The Vale as it heads west
from the Ramsgate Road. Formerly a Congregational church, its
parishioners originally met in the small chapel of St Mary's in the
centre of Broadstairs. Their minister, realising that the premises
were too small for the church's needs, was walking along The Vale
when he was offered land in a large garden next to Vale Villa on
which to build a new church.
The new building was opened in 1871 when a
memorial stone was laid by the MP for Hackney. Now at last there was
enough room for the holidaymakers in the summer months to join the
local congregation of about thirty members, some of whom had joined
the church to avoid the new Anglo-Catholic minister at Holy Trinity.
A memorial plaque was erected in the church to its first pastor, the
Reverend A F Bennett, who passed away on 11 July 1894, aged 68
years.
Christ Church Free Church of England is on
the eastern side of Osbourne Road, which is accessed from the south
via The Vale. Otherwise called the Reformed Episcopal Church, the
Free Church of England was enrolled as a definite legal entity in
the High Court of Chancery in 1863 (after splitting from the
official Anglican church in 1844), as a response to the Anglo-Catholism
of Henry Phillpotts, bishop of Exeter. The first church was built in
Bridgetown in Devon.
Now free to follow their evangelical (or Low
Church) practises in opposition to the more formal (High Church)
practises of the established church, the Free Church began to spread
across Britain. The date at which their original mission in
Broadstairs was founded is unknown but, as reported in the London Gazette,
the current church building was consecrated on the same site as the
original mission on 10 July 1916 and apparently remained in use in
2009.
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