Minster, Thanet

infobox UK place
country = England
official_name= Minster
latitude= 51.3332
longitude= 1.3082
static_

static_image_caption=Church of St Mary the Virgin, Minster-in-Thanet
population = 3,267 [cite web | url=http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk/dissemination/LeadTableView.do?a=3&b=795617&c=Minster&d=16&e=15&g=460403&i=1001x1003x1004&m=0&r=1&s=1214055729406&enc=1&dsFamilyId=779 | title=2001 Census: Key Statistics: Parish Headcounts: Area: Minster CP (Parish) | publisher=Office for National Statistics | accessdate=2008-06-21 ]
shire_district= Thanet
shire_county = Kent
region= South East England
constituency_westminster= South Thanet
post_town= RAMSGATE
postcode_district = CT12
postcode_area= CT
dial_code= 01843
os_grid_reference= TR305645

Minster (officially Minster-in-Thanet) is a village and civil parish in the Thanet District of Kent, England. The village is situated to the west of Ramsgate and to the north east of Canterbury, lies just south west of Kent International Airport and just north of the River Stour. Minster also considers itself as the "ancient capital of Thanet". [http://www.francisfrith.com/search/england/kent/minster-in-thanet/ Minster-In-Thanet] ; retrieved on [2008-05-22] ]

History

Minster originally started as a monastic settlement in AD670. The buildings are still used as nunneries today.

The name comes from the Latin "monasterium" and denotes the historical presence of an abbey or monastery. The first abbey in the village was founded by St. Domneva, a widowed noblewoman, whose daughter St. Mildred, is taken as the first Abbess. The tradition is that Domneva was granted as much land as a hind could run over in a day, the hind remains the village emblem, see also Thanet. The abbey was extinguished by Viking raiding. The next abbess after St. Mildred was St Edburga daughter of King Centwine of the West Saxons. [cite web | url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/boniface-letters.html | title=Medieval Sourcebook: The Correspondence of St. Boniface | accessdate=2008-09-13]

The parish church of St. Mary-the-Virgin is largely Norman but with significant traces of earlier work, the problems of which are unresolved. The nave is impressive with five bays, and the crossing has an ancient chalk block vaulting. The chancel is Early English with later flying buttresses intended to the very obvious spread of the upper walls. There is a fine set of Misericords reliably dated around 1400. The tower has a curious turret at its southeast corner that is locally referred to as a Saxon watch tower but is built at least partly from Caen stone; it may be that it may be dated from the time of the conquest but in an antique style sometimes called Saxo-Norman. A doorway in the turret opens out some two metres above the present roof line.

The church was used by both the brethren of the second abbey, a dependency of St. Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury and as a parish church. Socket holes in the piers of the crossing suggest that, as well as a rood screen, there was a further screen dividing nave and crossing, such as still exists at Dunster in Somerset. This abbey surrendered during the dissolution in 1534.

Minster Abbey is a house incorporating remains of the Saxon abbey and alleged to be the oldest continuously inhabited house in England. It now houses the village's third religious community, a Priory of Roman Catholic Benedictine sisters that is a daughter community of Eichstadt in Bavaria. It was settled in 1937 by refugees fleeing Nazi Germany and continues to flourish as a international community. [cite web | url=http://www.minsterabbeynuns.org/history-modern.html | title=Minster Abbey | accessdate=2008-09-13] The Priory has the care of a relic of St. Mildred that had been in the care of a church in Deventer in the Netherlands since the Reformation. [cite web | url=http://monasticmatrix.usc.edu/monasticon/?function=detail&id=963 | title=Monasticon: Community: Minster in Thanet | work=Monastic Matrix | publisher=University of Southern California | accessdate=2008-09-14 ]

Landscape

Land reclamation has had a strong history in Minster and Monkton, where the original reclamation was done by the monks themselves. [ [http://74.125.39.104/search?q=cache:RwVjjOczW04J:www.thanetarch.co.uk/Virtual%2520Museum/2_Galleries/G8%2520Content/Virtual_Museum_Gallery_8.html+Minster+Thanet+land+reclamation&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=4&client=safari Curators Introduction] ; retrieved on 2008-05-22]

Generally a flat landscape, the area's main features include marshes, farms, and rivers. Thanet District Council has however assessed Minster Marshes, south of the village, as being unstable, [cite web | url=http://www.planet-thanet.fsnet.co.uk/local_plan/thanet_plan_13.htm | title=Thanet Plan 13 | accessdate=2008-05-22] and some areas of Minster, particularly in the south of the village, have suffered from flooding. [cite web | url=http://www.thanet.gov.uk/pdf/LocalplanOct06v3.pdf | title=Thanet Local Plan 2006 | accessdate=2008-05-22]

Education

There is currently a small junior school in Minster called "Minster Church of England Primary School", which caters for the village's population. [cite web | url=http://www.minster-ramsgate.kent.sch.uk/keyinfo_detail.asp?Section=3&Ref=10 | title=Minster CE Primary School | accessdate=2008-06-21 ] As of 2007, there are 410 pupils attending the school. [cite web | url=http://www.schools.gov.uk/cgi-bin/performancetables/school_07.pl?Mode=Z&No=8863182&Type=P&Num=p420&Phase=p&Year=07&Base=v | title=Minster Church of England Primary School] | publisher=Department for Children, Schools and Families | accessdate=2008-06-21 ]

Transport

Minster railway station lies to the south of the village, on the line from Canterbury West to Ramsgate.

Interesting facts

*Minster is notable as the first place in the world to have a fatal car accident. [cite web | url=http://www.francisfrith.com/search/england/kent/monkton/ |title=Monkton & Kent | accessdate=2008-05-22] disputed-inline|date=September 2008
*In May 2008 Kent Police formally cautioned one man, and gave warnings to three others, for engaging in sexual activity in public toilets in the area. [cite web | url=http://www.kent.police.uk/Your%20Area/East%20Kent/East_Kent_news/sexual_activity_Mins.html | title=One man arrested and three warned following sexual activity in Minster | date=2008-05-19 | accessdate=2008-09-13]
*The new musical "Sex, Drugs & Rick'n Noel" by David Tristram, was performed by the "Minster Playhouse". [ [http://www.theatreroyalmargate.com/p1_whats_on/ss08/s32_sex_drugs_and_rick_n_noel.htm Sex drugs and rick n noel] , Theatre Royal Margate]
*Minster was the centre of focus of one of Jeffree Star's songs.

Notable residents

*St. Augustine is said by the Venerable Bede to have landed with 40 men at Ebbsfleet, within the parish of Minster, before beginning his mission in Canterbury.

*Richard Culmer, the infamous Puritan minister known locally as Blue Dick Culmer, was presented to the living but the people rejected him and his name - to this day - is still omitted from the role of incumbents in the church porch. [cite web | url=http://www.kentresources.co.uk/bdick1.htm | title=Blue Dick Culmer | accessdate=2008-09-13]

External links

* [http://www.minster-in-thanet.org.uk/index.shtml Village website]

References