St Catherine's Church Manston stands on the
eastern side of Preston Road, overlooking the northern side of the junction
with Manston Road, near Ramsgate. The church was a Victorian construction,
built in 1872 in yellow brick by the Reverend George Wilson Sicklemore, vicar
of the nearby St Laurence-in-the-Isle-of-Thanet. He needed another chapel to
tend to the villagers in this distant part of his parish. It is unclear whether
the church now has its own parish.
Manston (Wesleyan) Methodist Church stands
approximately 180 metres (yards) along the High Street, to the south of Manston
Road, on the left-hand side. Methodists were at work in a small chapel built
in 1834 in Manston, although where is uncertain. The present church was opened
in 1856 and the old one was sold. Following the Second World War all forms of
worship decline and the church was closed in 2006. Today it is home to the
Living Waters Church.
Acol Chapel stands inside the v-junction formed
by The Street and Plumston Road in Acol, near Westgate-on-Sea. The chapel
was founded as Acol Methodist Chapel, and it existed by 1881, probably
being built no more than thirty years beforehand. It closed in 1966 and was
immediately purchased by W S Cole & Son Ltd Funeral Directors, Monkton
Street, Monkton. The business began with William J Cole in 1891, when he
purchased a 200 year-old local operation.
St Mildred's Church Acol sits in a
sheltered plot on the north side of Plumston Road, just a few hundred
metres west of the junction with The Street. Acol needed its own church
by the 1860s rather than relying on All Saints Birchington. It was built
in 1876 as St Giles' Church, after the now-lost church at Sarre.
It gained its present dedication in 1886. St Nicholas Chapel at
Woodchurch existed in 1563, but later declined and fell into ruin,
disappearing completely.
St Nicholas-at-Wade stands at the north-east corner
of The Street and Shuart Lane. The village gained its name from being situated
close to a wading place, or ford, across the River Wantsum to the Isle of Thanet.
The church was constructed, seemingly complete with tower, as a chapel of ease
for St Mary's (Old) Church at Reculver. Its first rector was appointed in 1294.
The building consists of three isles, three chancels, and a square west tower
with five bells.
The building is of flint, with windows, doors, and
quoins in ashlar stone. It gained its own parish, and this was joined
with the little-known and short-lived nearby parish of All Saints
Shuart in the medieval period, while in the mid-1500s it gained the
parish of St Giles, Sarre. All Saints was allowed to disintegrate. Nearby
St Nicholas Court has a fine example of a medieval underground chapel,
although little is known about its origins or past use.
