Lydd

History

The place-name 'Lydd' is first attested in an Anglo-Saxon charter of 774, where it appears as ad Hlidum. This is the dative plural of the Old English hlid meaning 'slope'. Lydd developed as a settlement on a shingle island during the Romano-British period, when the coast at the time cut off Lydd from the mainland. The settlement continued into the Saxon period, when the Saxon church used Roman materials as part of its early construction. The town reached the height of its prosperity during the 13th century, when it was a corporate member of the Cinque Ports, a "limb" of Romney. Together with sites in the marsh, the town was a base for smuggling in the 18th and 19th centuries. Lydd Guildhall, which originally accommodated some prison cells, dates to 1792. Before and during the First World War, Lydd Camp was important for artillery training and practice. Experiments with high explosives carried out on the shingle wastes around 1888 led to the invention of the explosive Lyddite. Lydd was at one time a garrison town. At one time it had an extensive narrow gauge railway network, and the area is still an important training ground for the armed forces. Nearby RAF Denge was established between the world wars. It has surviving concrete acoustic mirrors, developed during World War II to detect the sound of approaching aircraft before radar was perfected. In the 20th century the hamlets of Lade and Lydd-on-Sea developed along the coast east of Lydd. They mostly consist of holiday bungalows. In September 1940, four young Dutch men landed on the coast between Hythe and Dungeness in a rowing boat. One was arrested for spying after arousing suspicion at the Rising Sun pub, owned by Cliff and Mabel Cole.. After arriving at the pub before opening hours, requesting a perry cider…