SANDWICH, a market town, municipal borough, and one of the Cinque Ports in the Isle of Thanet parliamentary division of Kent, England, 12 m. east of Canterbury, on the S.E. section of the S. R. Pop. (1931) 3,287. It is situated 2 m. from the sea, on the river Stour, which is navigable up to the bridge for vessels of 200 tons. The old line of the walls on the land side is marked by a public walk. The Fisher Gate and a gateway called the Bar bican are interesting; but the four principal gates were pulled down in the 18th century. St. Clement's church has a fine Nor man central tower, and St. Peter's (restored), said to date from the reign of King John, has interesting mediaeval monuments. The curfew is still rung at St. Peter's. There are three ancient hospitals ; St. Bartholomew's has a fine Early English chapel of the 12th century. The establishment of the railway and of the St. George's golf links (1886) rescued Sandwich from the decay into which it had fallen in the earlier part of the 19th century. The links are among the finest in England.
Richborough Castle, I4 m. north of Sandwich, is one of the finest relics of Roman Britain. It was called Rutupiae, and guarded one of the harbours for continental traffic in Roman times, and was in the 4th century a fort of the coast defence along the Saxon shore.
The situation of Sandwich on the Wantsum, once a navigable channel for ships bound for London, made it a famous port in the time of the Saxons, who probably settled here when the sea receded from the Roman port of Richborough. In 973 Edgar
granted the harbour and town to the monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury, and at the time of the Domesday Survey Sandwich supplied 40,000 herrings each year to the monks. As one of the Cinque Ports, Sandwich owed a service of five ships to the king, and shared the privileges granted to the Cinque Ports from the reign of Edward the Confessor onwards. At the end of the 13th century the monks granted the borough, with certain reserva tions, to Queen Eleanor; a further grant of their rights was made to Edward III. in 1364, the crown being thenceforward lord of the borough. The governing charter until 1835 was that granted by Charles II. in 1684.
During the middle ages Sandwich was one of the chief ports for the continent, but as the sea gradually receded and the passage of the Wantsum became choked with sand the port began to decay, and by the time of Elizabeth the harbour was nearly useless. In her reign Walloons settled here and introduced the manufacture of woollen goods and the cultivation of vegetables; this saved the borough from sinking into unimportance. Representatives from the Cinque Ports were first summoned to parliament in 1265; the first returns for Sandwich are for 1366, after which it returned two members until disfranchised in 1885.
See W. Boys, Collections for History of Sandwich (1792) ; E. Halted, History of Kent (1778-99) ; Victoria County History (Kent).