Herne | |
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Herne Windmill |
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Herne shown within Kent | |
Population | 7,325 (2001) (parish) |
OS grid reference | TR181658 |
Civil parish | |
District | |
Shire county | |
Region | |
Country | England |
Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
Post town | HERNE BAY |
Postcode district | CT6 |
Dialling code | 01227 |
Police | Kent |
Fire | Kent |
Ambulance | South East Coast |
EU Parliament | South East England |
UK Parliament | |
Herne /hɜːrn/ is a village in South East England, divided by the Thanet Way from the seaside resort of Herne Bay. Administratively it is in the civil parish of Herne and Broomfield in Kent. Between Herne and Broomfield is the former hamlet of Hunters Forstal; Herne Common lies to the south.
The hamlet of Bullockstone is about one mile to the west.
Archaeological excavations inside St Martin's Church at Herne in 1976 indicated that the first church there was similar to the earliest, Anglo-Saxon examples in Kent, such as those at Rochester, Canterbury, Reculver and Lyminge, and consisted of only a nave and an apsidal chancel. The historian Nicholas Brooks noted that the Domesday Monachorum of 1087 or soon after lists Herne as the location of a minster, which is recorded nowhere else. Brooks speculated that this referred to the church excavated in 1976, and that it may have been founded in the 7th or 8th century, but perhaps as late as the 11th century. However, he regarded it as "perhaps most likely that the foundation of a [minster] at Herne should be attributed to the tenth century when attempts were being made to recover from the devastation of the Viking incursions." A church at Herne is recorded as having been a chapelry belonging to St Mary's Church, Reculver, until 1310, when it became a parish church.