WALMER, a parish, and a member of the cinqueport
liberty of SANDWICH, locally in the hundred of
Cornilo, lathe of ST-AUGUSTINE, county of KENT, 2
miles (S.) from Deal, containing 3568 inhabitants. The
living is a perpetual curacy, in the archdeaconry and diocese
of Canterbury, endowed with £200 private benefaction,
and £200 royal bounty, and in the patronage
of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church, dedicated
to St. Mary, has lately received an addition of
three hundred and eighty sittings, of which two hundred
and eighty are free, the Incorporated Society for the
enlargement of churches and chapels having granted
£200 towards defraying the expense. Walmer-street, on
the high road from London to Dovor, is neatly built,
being interspersed with genteel houses, marine villas,
&c., and, partly on account of its convenient situation
as regards Dovor and Deal, is much frequented during
the season for sea-bathing. It is noted for the salubrity
of its air, and for the fine prospects, in its vicinity,
over the Downs and the straits of Dovor to the French
coast; but chiefly for the celebrated fortress, Walmer
Castle, erected by Henry VIII., at the same period with
those of Deal and Sandown, for the defence of the
coast, and now appropriated to the Lord Warden, of the
cinque-ports (an office usually held "by the first Lord of
the Treasury), for whose residence the principal apartments
were fitted up a few years ago, and the fosse,
at the same time, was converted into a garden. Here
are also barracks, but they are partially disused.