BIRCHINGTON, a village and a parish in Thanet district, Kent. The village stands adjacent to the Kent Coast railway, 3¼ miles W by S of Margate; and has a station on the r., and a post office under Margate. It occupies a gentle declivity, with extensive prospects by sea and land; and is about ¾ of a mile long. The parish is within the Cinque-port liberty of Dover; and comprises 1,680 acres of land, and 390 of water. Real property, £8,885. Pop., 813. Houses, 186. The property is divided among a few. The manor belonged, from the beginning of the 15th century, to the family of Quex; and passed by marriage, in the time of Henry VII., to the Crispes. One of its owners, a distinguished puritan, in 1657, was carried off from it to the Continent, by the royalist captain Golding, and long kept prisoner at Ostend and Bruges. William III. frequently rested at the manor-house on his excursions to Holland. The present mansion is modern; bears the name of Great Quex; and is the seat of H. P. Cotton, Esq. Two towers stand in the park, and are good sea-marks; and one of them contains a fine peal of bells. The living is. a p. curacy, annexed to the vicarage of Monkton, in the diocese of Canterbury. The church consists of nave, chancel, and aisles, with tower and spire; and on the north side of it is a chapel of the manor, containing some fine monuments and ancient brasses. There are chapels for Baptists and Wesleyans, and a national school.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))