Reculver is a village and coastal resort about east of
Herne Bay in south-east England, in a
ward of the same name, in the
City of Canterbury district of
Kent. It once occupied a strategic location at the north-western end of the
Wantsum Channel, a sea lane that separated the
Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland until the late
Middle Ages. This led the
Romans to build a small fort there at the time of their
conquest of Britain in 43 AD, and, starting late in the 2nd century, they built a larger fort, or
castrum, called
Regulbium, which later became one of the chain of
Saxon Shore forts. The military connection resumed in the
Second World War, when the sea off Reculver was used for testing
Barnes Wallis's
bouncing bombs.