Thanet Interesting Facts

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Think you know all there is to know about the Isle of Thanet and its resorts Margate, Broadstairs and Ramsgate? Who doesn’t love a fact, so we have pulled together some for you

• The Thanet coastline represents 20% of the UKs and 12% of Europe’s coastal chalk and we have the longest continuous stretch of chalk cliffs in Britain.

• The 19 miles of Thanet coastline boasts 4 Blue Flags and 12 Seaside Awards (2024 awards awarded).

• The whole of the Thanet coastline is designated as part of the ‘North East Kent European Marine Sites’ covering a number of international nature conservations designations. www.thanetcoast.org.uk

• Thanet has around 250 hectares of intertidal chalk reef that is home to an array of shorelife from the white bivalve ‘piddock’ shells – which entomb themselves for life there – to seaweeds and vibrant rockpool life.

• The Thanet Coast Marine Conservation Zone designation covers coastal habitats like our blue mussel beds, and rare species like the stalked jellyfish.

• Thanet has 27 conservation areas and over 2,000 listed buildings.

• Thanet is unique. It is the most easterly of the British Isles and for this reason Stone Age people buried their ancestors here so that they could be nearest to the rising sun.

• The area has a rich agricultural tradition.

• During the Middle Ages the island was owned by two monasteries of Canterbury, which ran it as a farming estate dominated by massive churches and administered from monastic granges.

• Even in its early period as a resort, Thanet was considered close to London being conveniently reachable by boat. Simultaneously it was far enough removed from the capital to allow visitors to feel that they could ‘let their hair down’.

• Thanet has been described as the gateway island since it has been the point of arrival of a succession of continental people and ideas since the earliest human occupation of Britain.

• Thanet was home to both the man who saved Stonehenge for the nation, Lord Lubbock (who was also the inventor of Bank Holidays) and the band most associated with Stonehenge, Hawkwind (who were also the precursors of Punk and New-Age Travellers).

• The Georgian architecture of health and pleasure peppers the district as a monument to the island’s life-enhancing properties and it is no coincidence that Margate pioneered the mixed bathing rebellion among the Edwardian working class; a revolution led by the great Soubrette and Margate-lover Marie Lloyd.

• One of Thanet’s rarest and strangest wildlife can be found at the back of our chalk sea caves – living algal communities cover the sides and back of the caves.

Margate Interesting Facts   Broadstairs Interesting Facts     Ramsgate Interesting Facts