Broadstairs the 1930s by A.H. Simison (the photographic chemist) entitled "Ramsgate (The Kent Coast at its best) Pictorially Presented", describes Broadstairs town as having approached modernisation and urban development "always with a consistent policy of retaining those characteristics for which it has for so long been renowned". The town has retained many aspects of historical interest, besides its maritime history. Amongst these is its notable religious history, evoked by places such as the Shrine of Our Lady, Bradstowe. Lifeboats arrived in Broadstairs in 1851. News of the loss of the Irish packet with 250 lives, on the sands off Margate on
Broadstairs York Gate in 1540, a portal that still spans Harbour Street and which then held two heavy wooden doors that could be closed in times of threat from the sea. Richard Culmer was the son of Sir Richard Culmer by his first wife and was born in 1640/41. Richard was buried in the parish church of Monkton, on the Isle of Thanet. Of his legacies was the endowment on Broadstairs of an area of six acres (24,000 m²) of ground for the poor of the parish. The name survives to this day as "Culmer's Allotment" as does the allotment. In