MINSTER, a parish in the hundred of RINGSLOW, or Isle of THANET, lathe of ST-AUGUSTINE, county of KENT, 4 miles (W. by S.) from Ramsgate, containing 920 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the archdeaconry and diocese of Canterbury, rated in the king's books at £33. 3. 4., and in the patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a handsome cruciform structure, in the early style of English architecture, with a lofty spire steeple,; in the choir are eighteen stalls. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. The river Stour runs along the southern boundary of the parish, and its navigation to Sandwich is materially shortened by a canal called Stonar Cut. Minster once possessed a charter for a market and a fair: the former is disused, but the latter, for pedlary and toys, is still kept on Good Friday. Courts leet and baron are held here. About half a mile south-east from the church is Ebbsfleet, where Hengist and Horsa first landed in 449, St. Augustine in 596, and subsequently, from France, St. Mildred, the first abbess of a convent of seventy nuns, founded here about 670, in honour of the Virgin Mary, by her mother Domneva, a niece of King Egbert, in 980, and 1011, this convent was pillaged and and its inmates murdered, by the Danes; after which only a few Secular priests occupied the remains, its possessions having been given to the monks ot W. Augustine's abbey, Canterbury, who removed the body of St. Mildred to their own church. About a mile to the eastward of St. Mary's, St. Eadburgha, in 740, built another convent, in honour of St. Peter and St. Paul.