Town in Kent, England
Whitstable
Romans shipped its oysters to Rome, a tiny railway once ran its shellfish to Canterbury, and Hammer's Dracula-slayer chose it as home.
Key information
- County
- Kent
- Nation
- England
- Known for
- Native oysters, the Oyster Festival, seafront huts, sunsets and the Crab and Winkle Line
- Famous people
- Peter Cushing (long-time resident), plus fictional sleuth Pearl Nolan
- Football clubs
- Whitstable Town (the Oystermen)
About Whitstable
The oyster town that fed the Romans
Whitstable's famous shellfish have been prized for a very long time. The Romans are said to have shipped Kentish oysters back to Rome, and the town has farmed and dredged the native oyster (Ostrea edulis) from the Thames estuary ever since. By the 1790s the local dredgers had organised themselves into the Company of Free Fishers and Dredgers of Whitstable, an early form of fishermen's co-operative. Oysters were once cheap food for the poor in Victorian London, and Whitstable sent them up by the boatload. Overtime, disease, cold winters and the 1953 floods hammered the beds. Today the native oyster is a delicacy again, and plenty of what you eat on the seafront is the hardier Pacific rock oyster. Either way, the town still serves them with a pint, a lemon wedge and a certain amount of swagger.
The Crab and Winkle Line that changed travel
In 1830 a steam railway opened between Whitstable and Canterbury, about six miles of track nicknamed the Crab and Winkle Line. It is often cited as one of the world's first steam passenger railways, and it is also credited with early season tickets. The line used a mix of fixed engines and locomotives, including the famous Invicta, built by Robert Stephenson's works. It also included one of the earliest railway tunnels, at Tyler Hill. Passengers stopped using it in 1931 and freight ended in 1953, but its name lives on. Part of the route is now a footpath and cycle route, the Crab and Winkle Way, so you can retrace one of Britain's earliest railway journeys on foot.
A harbour with a working pulse
Whitstable Harbour opened in 1832 to serve the railway and the sea trade. It remains a working harbour, with fishing boats, whelks and cargo ships, which is part of why the town feels like a real place and not a postcard. Along the front stand the weatherboarded fishermen's cottages, net stores and sheds that now sell seafood, art and ice cream. Wheeler's Oyster Bar, a tiny restaurant open since 1856, is one of the town's best-known names. The beach is shingle rather than sand, lined with beach huts and fish smokehouses, and it faces north across the estuary. That orientation gives the town its reputation for sunsets, which locals and visitors gather to watch from the sea wall with fish and chips.
The Street, the Slopes and a castle
At low tide a shingle spit called the Street stretches out into the Swale, a long walkway across the seabed. It's one of the town's quirkiest sights, and the tide covers it again so quickly that you need to keep an eye on the water. Above it, the grassy Tankerton Slopes rise to a row of seaside houses, with colourful beach huts below. Further inland, Whitstable Castle, a late-eighteenth-century Gothic-style house, sits in its gardens and is now used for events and community life.
Festivals, art and a famous resident
Each year the Whitstable Oyster Festival opens with the Landing of the Oysters, a ceremony with a parade and a blessing of the waters before the fun begins. It's the biggest date in the town's calendar, and the festival now runs in September. The town has also become a magnet for artists, with the Whitstable Biennale, which began in 2002, adding contemporary art to the harbour and seafront. Television has helped too: the Whitstable Pearl crime series, based on Julie Wassmer's novels, features a seaside restaurateur turned detective. Peter Cushing, the Hammer horror star who played Van Helsing and Grand Moff Tarkin in the original Star Wars, made his home here for decades. He died in 1994 and remains the town's best-loved screen name.
Football for the Oystermen
Whitstable Town Football Club, nicknamed the Oystermen, plays at Belmont Road. The nickname is a reminder that, even on matchdays, the town's identity runs back to the seabed. Out on the water, sailing, kayaking and paddleboarding keep the shoreline busy through the summer, and the harbour and the town's yacht club have long been central to local life.