The Nave and Chancel © PE Blanche 1999 In Memory of Nicolas Ridley Martyr sometime Vicar of Herne © PE Blanche 1999 This is a lovely Church located in the centre of the Village of Herne where the main road from Canterbury to Herne Bay wraps itself around the Eastern end of churchyard. It has distinctive alternate bands of flint and Kentish ragstone at the base of the tower at the West end of the building. At the base of this tower is a headstone dedicated to Midshipman Sydenham Snow which I don't think is actually in its original position. Midshipman Snow was killed by smugglers on the beach at Herne Bay in 1821. There is a grave of at least one known smuggler in the churchyard that I know of and there may well be considerably more. Death tends to be a great leveler! The Rev. Giles Daubeney, the author of the book, Reminiscences of a Country Parson, moved to Herne in 1905 and tells that there were still three men living in the Village of Herne who had been smugglers all of their lives. The Church has a beautiful interior, ornate without being overdone. It is in good repair and extremely tidy, a credit to its Churchwardens and parishioners. It is so nice to enter a church these days which still has a Chancel Screen, a feature which I remember from my younger years as a standard feature which is now removed from so many churches. The Church was constructed in the early part of the 14th Century and is extremely large for the size of the Village as it would have been at that time. However, it is highly possible that a Chapel stood in the Village and may have been associated with the nearby Reculver prior to the construction of the existing structure. Perhaps the most well-known encumbant of the Vicarage of Herne was Nicolas Ridley who is noted for the "Te Deum" to be sung in English for the first time. He may more often be remembered, as the then Bishop of London, for being burned at the stake in Oxford, along with Bishop Latimer. He was eventually accused and convicted of heresy in 1555 although unfortunately, throwing his support behind the attempt by Lady Jane Grey to become the Queen of England two years earlier had obviously not helped his cause. Prior to his death, he wrote several letters in which he fondly remembered his time at Herne. There are several fine 15th and 16th Century brasses in this Church. These are memorials to; Lady Fineux, the wife of the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, John Darley, a former Vicar at Herne, Lady Phelip, whose husband supplied the jewels for the coronation of Edward IV, Peter Halle and his wife and the family of John Atte Sea.