Betteshanger

Betteshanger is a village and former civil parish. now in the parish of Northbourne, in the Dover district, in east Kent, England, near Deal. It gave its name to the largest of the four chief collieries of the Kent coalfield. In 1931 the parish had a population of 55. On 1 April 1935 the parish was abolished and merged with Northbourne. Betteshanger parish (with variation 'Betleshangre') has existed at least since Domesday times. It remained a small scattered parish until the advent of the Kent Coalfield. St Mary's Church sits almost alone in woodland in the centre of the parish. At 'Little Betteshanger' a cluster of houses surround Betteshanger Farm and are very close to Northbourne Primary School. Betteshanger Colliery opened in the late 1920s and was the largest of the Kent collieries. Miners from other coalfields travelled to Deal in the hope of finding work at the new pit, and many lodging houses, cafes and pubs in Deal put up signs saying "no miners" owing to fear of the arrival of the often dirty men who spoke very different dialects. It had two shafts of almost 2,300 feet, plaques can still be seen where the shafts were once sunk. The colliery was served by a railway branch which left the main line between Deal & Sandwich. Betteshanger had a tradition of union militancy. Many of the miners who moved to Kent to work at Betteshanger had been blacklisted in their home areas after the 1926 strike, so there was a high proportion of "hardline union men". It was the first pit to come out on strike during the Second World War and took active part in the miners' strikes of 1969, 1972, 1974 and 1984/85. A sit-in was staged at the colliery in 1984 and those involved were sacked for trespass. The Kent Area's NUM initially refused to return to work until those sacked were reinstated and continued to picket the rest of the country after the NUM's national executive had voted to return to work, so Betteshanger was actually the last pit in Britain to return to work after the strike.