The St Peter’s Village Tour joined forces with Co-op staff and staged an official opening of the newly renovated store in St. Peter’s, officiated by Lady Colgrain, the new Lord-Lieutenant of Kent, who took up her role on April 22, 2020.
The Lord-Lieutenant is the county’s official representative of Her Majesty, The Queen. To the right of Lady Colgrain is the Mayor and Mayoress of Broadstairs, Cllr Paul Moore who was re-elected as Mayor of Broadstairs & St. Peter’s for the 2020-2021 Civic Year at the Annual Council Meeting held virtually on 27th May. His Wife Cllr Wendy Moore was invested as his Mayoress. Next to them on the far right is Craig Mackinlay the Conservative MP for South Thanet made up of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Sandwich and Cliftonville.
Following on from the “opening’, Lady Colgrain met up with the President of the village tour, Brian Sleightholm BEM, the Rev. Alice Bates and Pauline Osborne the Church Warden who is seen standing next to her sister Beryl, on the far left.
Further introductions were made when Brian Sleightholm introduced Lady Colgrain to Susan Elliott the tour Chairman, on the right of the photo and Amanda Cottrell OBE, chairman of Kent Tourism Alliance, patron of Produced in Kent and former High Sheriff of Kent, who has been the patron of St Peter’s Village tour since February 2012.
After the introductions, the official party were guided by Sue Brooks and taken on the tour where they encountered many costumed characters from past centuries and discovered the hidden secrets of St Peters revealed by the numerous vignettes along the way.

Church overseer with his wife. 
School teacher in the old style. 
Flint Cottage once the Stewards Cottage part of the old Pleasure Gardens – Ranelagh Gardens. 
Joss Snelling -The Smuggler (1741-1837) 
Soldier 
The Coves built in 1769, it was the last house in the high street, the name is probably a corruption of ‘caves’ there are many tunnels and caves in Thanet used by smugglers. 
The Rev John Wesley (1703-1791) on the left, formed the Methodist church.
Find out more about The Village Tour here.
A quick tidy up!
Thanks to the help of this young volunteer trio, the area of paving and garden border was swept and weeded just in time for the dignitaries to pass by and perform the Grand re-opening. They now have a wonderful refurbished store and they have always been willing to help our church with some raffle prizes etc for our fundraising events.
Our thanks to Edwina, Richard and John for giving up your morning.









