page_title: Broadstairs
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Broadstairs / History
caption_attribution_description: English: St Mary's chapel in Broadstairs is built on the site of the Shrine of Our Lady, Bradstowe, formerly a major landmark and place of pilgrimage on the Kent coast. It is the origin of the custom where sailing ships would dip their topsails as a mark of respect.
context_page_description: Broadstairs is a coastal town on the Isle of Thanet in the Thanet district of east Kent, England, about 80 miles east of London. It is part of the civil parish of Broadstairs and St Peter's, which includes St Peter's, and had a population in 2011 of about 25,000. Situated between Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs is one of Thanet's seaside resorts, known as the "jewel in Thanet's crown". The town's coat of arms's Latin motto is Stella Maris. The name derives from a former flight of steps in the chalk cliff, which led from the sands up to the 11th-century shrine of St Mary on the cliff's summit.
  The town spreads from Haine Road in the west to Kingsgate, a hamlet in St Peter parish in the north, and to Dumpton in the south. The hamlet of Reading Street was established by Flemish refugees in the 17th century.
context_section_description: The inland village of St Peter's was established after the building of a parish church in about 1080.
  The coastal confederation of Cinque Ports during its mediæval period consisted of a confederation of 42 towns and villages in all. This included St Peter's, as a 'limb' of Dover.
  On the nearby coast was a cliff-top shrine, the Shrine of Our Lady, at what was then called Bradstow(e), meaning "broad place" (perhaps referring to the wide bay).
  A fishing settlement developed in the vicinity of the shrine in the 14th century. This came to be called "Broadstairs", after a flight of steps which was made in the cliff to give access to the shrine from the bay. Older forms of the name include Brodsteyr Lynch (1434 & 1494 ), Brodestyr (1479), Broadstayer (1565) and Brod stayrs (1610). Charles Culmer, son of Waldemar, is supposed to have reconstructed the stairs in 1350.
caption: St Mary's chapel was built on the site of the shrine.
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