Dunkirk is a relatively new village, with only a few buildings that pre-date the 19th century. It was a very impoverished area, and was the scene of the last armed uprising in Britain, when in 1838 a group of about 40 farm workers who had suffered from the introduction of the 'New' Poor Laws, so that they could no longer get monetary help in times of little employment, but instead had to go into the workhouse, followed a charismatic character calling himself 'Sir William Courtenay', (actually one John Thom, now buried in St Michael's churchyard in nearby Hernhill) who had despaired of getting social reform by peaceful means. 150 Infantrymen of the 45th Regiment of Foot were called out, and a one-sided, bloody struggle followed, the so-called Battle of Bossenden Wood. Courtenay shot Lieutenant Bennett dead, and Courtenay and seven others on his side were killed. Belatedly realising the deprivation that had lead to the uprising, a school and the Church were built at Dunkirk by Government order.
Christ Church was designed by John Whichcord in the Gothic style, but with a very un-Gothic and un-Kentish slate roof. It is said that some of the masonry came from the old walls of the City of Canterbury, which were partially dismantled at the time. The church was declared redundant in 1988, and is now a private home. The southern part of the churchyard has been enclosed and made into a garden; the memorials have been removed, but in 2009 a memorial near the west door in the part of the churchyard still accessible to the public recorded the names of those whose graves had been obscured.
Until the construction of the Boughton by-pass in the late 1960s, the busy A2 road from London to Canterbury and Dover ran directly in front of the churchyard. A lady who was married at Christ Church in the early 60s told me that police had to hold up the traffic so that she, her new husband and the wedding guests could cross to the reception.
(Text by Sheilia W.)