Queenborough

History

In Saxon times, the settlement on the site was known as Cyningburh, "king's borough". The name Queenborough derives from the Old English cwēnburh and literally means the 'Queen's borough'. The town is named after Queen Philippa, the wife of King Edward III. A fortress, called Sheppey Castle or Queenborough Castle, was built to guard the passage of ships along the Swale upon the command of King Edward III between 1361 and 1377, during the Hundred Years' War with France. It was built on the site of a much earlier, but smaller castle. They also suggest that the design, which bore similarities to Henry VIII's Device Forts of the 16th century, may have been designed to defend against and to make best use of gunpowder artillery. Queenborough was the only true concentric castle built in England. It regained importance in the 16th century under Thomas Cheney, when it is thought to have influenced the construction of nearby Deal Castle and Walmer Castle. In those days north Kent was divided by open waters and marshes stretching inland. The safest navigation to the open sea was then the route from the Thames into the Yantlet Creek (separating the Isle of Grain from the rest of Hoo Peninsula), and thus into the Swale from the Medway estuary, around the leeward side of the Isle of Sheppey into the Wantsum Channel, navigating past the Isle of Thanet to Sandwich and only then into the open waters of the English Channel. It was thus an easily defensible planned-town centre for the wool trade. King Edward III had the town renamed after his Queen, Philippa of Hainault, and conferred upon it the rights of a free borough, with a governing body of a mayor and two bailiffs. He granted Queenborough a charter in 1366 and two years later bestowed the duties of a royal borough upon it.…

Most-observed species

• Common Wood-Pigeon

  Columba palumbus Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  7,099
• Black-headed Gull

  Chroicocephalus ridibundus (Linnaeus, 1766) · Aves
  6,917
• Carrion Crow

  Corvus corone Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  6,194
• Eurasian Magpie

  Pica pica (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  6,086
• European Starling

  Sturnus vulgaris Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,505
• Herring Gull

  Larus argentatus Pontoppidan, 1763 · Aves
  5,273
• Mallard

  Anas platyrhynchos Linnaeus, 1758 · Aves
  5,238
• European Robin

  Erithacus rubecula (Linnaeus, 1758) · Aves
  4,839

Most recent

• M 3.3 — 2019-02-27
  3 km SE of Dorking, United Kingdom
• M 2.8 — 2018-07-05
  1 km S of Ewhurst, United Kingdom
• M 2.6 — 2018-06-27
  5 km W of Capel, United Kingdom
• M 2.7 — 2018-04-01
  4 km E of Holmwood, United Kingdom
• M 3.7 — 2015-05-22
  3 km SSE of Ramsgate, United Kingdom
• M 3.5 — 2009-03-03
  1 km ENE of Hawkinge, United Kingdom