Lympne, United Kingdom

History

In Roman times, Lympne was known as Portus Lemanis, from which (or from the British eponym of which) the English name is derived in identical written form to one of its Middle English written recorded forms. It lay at the end of the Roman road from Canterbury, known today as Stone Street. It had a Saxon Shore fort and, according to a fifth-century source, was garrisoned by a regiment originally raised in Tournai in northern Gaul. The remains are at the bottom of the south-facing cliffs; they lie in private land but can be visited due to a public footpath crossing the area. In Anglo-Saxon times the fort was given the name "Stutfall", meaning "fold in which a stud, or herd, is kept". One of the oldest houses in the village is The Sanctuary; parts of the building date back to 1774.

From 1923, Lympne Aerodrome was home to the Lympne light aircraft trials and air races. In the 1930s, it was the starting point for several long-distance record flights, including a solo one to Cape Town by Amy Johnson in 1932, and also ones by her later husband Jim Mollison. Jean Batten later flew from Lympne to Darwin, beating Johnson's long-distance record, in 1934. In the post-war years, the world's first air car-ferry service was operated by Silver City Airways between Lympne and Le Touquet. The airport has closed and has become an industrial estate.

From the History section of Lympne on Wikipedia, under CC BY-SA 4.0.