Ye Old Backdoor

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]St Martin Church
Herne Village
Kent

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.[/FONT]

 

Nice composition and what a pretty church...I would increase the contrast a tad and convert it to gray scale...Nice job all in all