A28 road

The A28 is a trunk road in southern England. It runs south-west from the seaside resort of Margate in Kent via Westgate and Birchington, reaching open countryside at Sarre. The road continues via Upstreet and Hersden to Sturry, and on to the cathedral city of Canterbury. It forms part of Canterbury's ring road before leaving via Wincheap and Thanington Without, where a sliproad linking to the A2 was completed in 2011, and passing between the North Downs via Chartham, Chilham, Godmersham and Bilting.

The A28 plunges back into suburbia at Kennington, a suburb of Ashford, but skirts around the town centre on a section of dual carriageway. In 1982, this section was named Simone Weil Avenue, in honour of the French philosopher and mystic. Bypassing Great Chart, the road undulates around the Kentish Weald via Bethersden and High Halden, to the market town of Tenterden.

The A28 continues via Rolvenden and Newenden before crossing a narrow bridge over the River Rother and entering East Sussex via Northiam, beyond which the road becomes very winding. After Brede there is a steep descent to bridge the river of the same name. Next is Westfield, just before the road climbs to terminate at its junction with the A21 just north of Hastings.

Sturry

Coordinates: 51°18′13″N 1°07′16″E / 51.3036°N 1.1211°E / 51.3036; 1.1211

Sturry is a village on the Great Stour river three miles north-east of Canterbury in Kent. Its large civil parish incorporates the former 'mining village' of Hersden and several hamlets.

Geography

It lies at the old Roman junction of the road from the city to Thanet and Reculver: at the point where a fort was built to protect the crossing of the river. Sturry railway station was opened in 1848 and electrified in 1962, by the South Eastern Railway: it is on the line between Canterbury west and Ramsgate. The station was until the 1860s the stage coach point for Herne and Herne Bay. The parish boundaries are the same now as they were in 1086 as recorded in the Domesday Book.

History

Human habitation in Sturry is thought to have started around 430,000 years ago, as dated flint implements - namely knives and arrow-tips - show. Other signs of early human activities include a collection of axes and pottery shards from the Bronze Age and more pottery from the Sturry Hill gravel-pits, and a burial-ground near Stonerocks Farm showed that there was an Iron Age settlement of Belgic Celts (who gave Canterbury its pre-Roman name of Durovemum) from the end of the 2nd century BC. All this evidence indicates that human habitation of some kind existed on the north bank of the River Stour, on Sturry's site, for hundreds and thousands of years. When the Romans arrived, they built Island Road (the A28) to connect Canterbury, the local tribal capital, with the ferry to the Isle of Thanet, with a branch to their fort at Reculver.