in 1864. In the same year a passenger station was proposed for Reculver, primarily to serve tourists, but it was not built. In 1884 the South Eastern Railway proposed building a branch line from its station at Grove Ferry on the Ashford to Ramsgate line to join the London, Chatham and Dover Railway's Chatham Main Line at Reculver, thereby linking Canterbury and Herne Bay. The Canterbury and Kent Coast Railway Bill was presented to a select committee of MPs in January 1885: the London, Chatham and Dover Railway objected to it, particularly the junction with their main line at Reculver, so the Bill was rejected and the line was not built. Rudimentary houses were erected by the East Kent Railway company on nearby marshland in 1858 for the navvies who constructed the line through the area; these had been taken over by enginemen of the South Eastern and Chatham Railway by October 1904, when they were replaced by cottages. There is no provision for access to Reculver from the sea, but there were maritime connections from at least the 1st century, when the Roman fort of Regulbium had a supporting harbour. The quantity and variety of coins found at Reculver dating from the 7th century to the 8th are almost certainly related to its location on a major trade route through the Wantsum Channel; there was probably still a harbour in Anglo-Saxon times, and the monastery may well have operated a "fleet of ships and its own boatyard." Details in the 10th-century charter in which King Eadred gave Reculver to the archbishops of Canterbury suggest that there was then an island immediately to the north, creating a "mini-Wantsum [Channel that] could have provided a sheltered channel for beaching and berthing ships"; the present day Black Rock beyond the shoreline may be a remnant of this island. In the 17th century an inlet to the north-west was described as "anciently for a harber of ships, called now The Old Pen". In the 18th century there was a place for landing passengers and goods at the village, and the former name of the King Ethelbert Inn, the "Hoy and Anchor", makes reference to hoys, a local type of merchant sailing vessel. These continued to serve the coastline of northern Kent in the mid-19th century. In 1810 a canal was proposed to run from the coast between Reculver and St Nicholas-at-Wade to Canterbury,