Copyright Kent Past 2010
The History of Kent
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History of Lydd
Lydd comes from the Old English ‘hlid’ meaning a ‘lid, door, gate’; therefore, 'at
Lydd parish church is a Grade: I listed building, dedicated to All Saints. The Saxons first built it in the late 5th century. The Normans rebuilt the nave and chancel and the three eastern-
Parishioners restored the interior in the 18th century and increased capacity to 1,000 by replacing box pews with oak. In 1920, Gillett and Johnston recast the five bells into a ring of eight. On 15 October 1940, a bomb destroyed the chancel; the attack occurred at 4:07 PM, being the time when the church clock, stopped. Additional bombing attacks in 1944 caused further damage.
Lydd railway station opened on the South Eastern Railway’s branch line from Appledore
to Dungeness, on 7 December 1881. Until 1 April 1883, only freight could continue
past Lydd to Dungeness. However, passenger services at Lydd station ceased on 6 March
1967, with freight services going the same way on 4 October 1971. British Rail put
the site on the market for redevelopment in May 2006.
Before World War I Lydd became an important artillery training camp. Experiments with high explosives carried out on the shingle wastes around 1888 led to the invention of the explosive Lyddite. Lydd is the location of an airfield -
During WWII Lydd had a fuel pumping station as part of the Pluto: 'Pipe line under the ocean’ project, linking Dungeness via a Petroleum pipeline at Walton-