BROADSTAIRS, a watering-place in the Isle of Thanet (Kent), England, 3m. S.E. of Margate, on the Southern railway. Pop. of urban district, Broadstairs and St. Peter's (192I) a high figure because census was in tourist season. Pop. (i931) 12,748. From 1837 to 1851 Broadstairs was a favourite summer resort of Charles Dickens, who, in a sketch called "Our English Watering-Place," described it as a place "left high and dry by the tide of years." This seaside village, with its "semicircular sweep of houses," grew into a considerable town owing to the influx of summer visitors. Dickens' residence was called Fort House, but it became known as Bleak House, through association with his novel of that name, written after his last visit to Broadstairs in 1851. Broadstairs has a small pier for fishing-boats, first built in the reign of Henry VIII. Not far off is the site of a chapel of the Virgin, to which ships were accustomed to lower their top-sails as they passed. Kingsgate, on the North Foreland, north of Broad stairs on the coast, changed its name from St. Bartholomew's Gate in honour of Charles II.'s landing here with the duke of York in 1683 on his way from London to Dover.