County Council. In 2006, the school's Key Stage 2 performances ranked 340th out of 386 Kent state primary schools. Transport Birchington-on-Sea railway station is on the Chatham Main Line which runs between Ramsgate in East Kent and London Victoria. Other stations on this line include Broadstairs, Margate, Herne Bay, Faversham, Gillingham, Chatham, Rochester and Bromley South. Birchington is around 1 hour and 40 minutes from London by Mainline train. A National Express coach service also runs between London Victoria Coach Station and Ramsgate via Birchington-on-Sea. A selection of early morning and evening trains run on weekdays to London's Cannon Street station and high speed services to St Pancras International, primarily for business commuting. There are Stagecoach South East bus services running to Westgate-on-Sea, Margate, Broadstairs, Canterbury and Herne Bay. The A28 road runs between Hastings and Margate via Ashford, Canterbury, Birchington and Westgate-on-Sea. 3 miles (5 km) southwest of Birchington-on-Sea, the A28 crosses the A299 road which leads along North Kent towards London, becoming the M2 motorway at Faversham. Notable residents Residents of Birchington-on-Sea have included the British screenwriter Tudor Gates, who wrote a number of stories about female vampires for Hammer Studios in the early 1970s. Gates died in the village in January 2007. On Easter Sunday, 1882, Pre-Raphaelite illustrator, painter, translator and poet Dante Gabriel Rossetti rented a bungalow in the village, in an attempt to recuperate from ill-health. He died in April the same year and was buried in the churchyard of All Saints, under a tombstone designed by fellow artist, Ford Madox Brown. References External links Birchington Parish Council Villages in Kent Beaches of Kent Civil parishes in Kent Populated coastal places in Kent Seaside resorts in England