For two thousand years, the ‘peaceful undulating country of East Kent’ had pursued ‘an agricultural and seaside existence, perturbed by nothing more agitating than an ephemeral military conquest or so!’  But in 1931, as Patrick Abercrombie noted, a new coalfield seemed destined to change all that: (1)

That deep peace is now permanently invaded; for, however much we may minimise the ugly effects of industrialisation, and however well-planned the new additions may be, so as to conform to the genius of the locality, a change fundamental and complete will have taken place from the peace of the country to the busy hum of men.

That ‘busy hum’ never quite had the impact anticipated by Abercrombie and others in the interwar years but it did, nevertheless, change significantly a bucolic corner of rural England.  Though the last mine of the East Kent coalfield closed in 1989, a significant residue remains.  This…