LYMPNE

'Lympne' () village is situated on the once sea cliffs above the Romney Marsh in Kent. It lies approximately 11 km (7 miles) west of Folkestone, 2 miles west of Hythe and 17 km (11 miles) east of Ashford.
There was a Saxon fort, Stutfall (meaning ''Stout wall'') here, and its remains are situated at the bottom of the south-facing cliffs. The Saxon fort was built on the location of a previous Roman fort.
The Romans occupied the area, too, it being known at that time as "Portus Lemanis". The village lies at the end of the Roman road from Canterbury, known as Stone Street. According the ''Notitia Dignitatum Occidentis'', the Roman fort was garrisoned by a ''numerus Turnacensium'',^[2] a garrison of soldiers from the town Tournai in the Northern Gaul.
St. Stephens church and Lympne Castle overlook Romney Marsh, the church being significantly older, and closeby Lympne Hill figures in the Doctor Syn stories.
In the 1930s Lympne Aerodrome was the starting point for several long distance record flights, including a solo one to Cape Town by the aviatrix Amy Johnson in 1932, and also ones by her later-to-be husband Jim Mollison. Jean Batten later flew from Lympne to Darwin, beating Johnson's long-distance record, in 1934. The aerodrome was also the venue for air races. The airport has now been closed and turned into an industrial estate.
Lympne has a village shop, hairdresser's and public house (County Members) and straddles the B2067 road from Hythe, Kent to Aldington, Hamstreet and Tenterden. The nearest railway station is at Westenhanger. Lympne is also well known for John Aspinal's Port Lympne Zoo, which occupies the ridge of hills upon which the village stands. Nearby Newingreen is reputedly the site of England's first motel on the A20.

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Lympne in fiction

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Lympne in fiction

In H.G. Wells's 1901 novel ''First Men in the Moon'', the English narrator Bedford — the sole survivor of the Moon expedition — attempting to land the antigravity sphere anywhere on Earth, has the good fortune to land it on the seashore at Lympne, reasonably close to his departure point. A local boy enters the antigravity sphere without Bedford's permission, and accidentally activates it ... sending himself and the sphere into space, never to return.

External links

★ A comprehensive history of the village

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Notes

1. National Statistics Census 2001
2. ''Notitia Dignitatum Occidentis'', XXVIII, ed. A. W. Byvanck, ''Excerpta Romana. De bronnen der romeinsch geschiedenis van Nederland'', t. I, La Haye, 1931, p571.