Eastchurch is a village on the Isle of Sheppey

Isle of Sheppey

The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England in the Thames Estuary, some to the east of London. It has an area of . The island forms part of the local government district of Swale...

, in the English county of Kent

Kent

Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...

, two miles east of Minster

Minster-in-Sheppey

Minster is a small town on the north coast of the Isle of Sheppey and in the Swale district of Kent, England.-Toponymy:The name of the town derives from the monastery founded in the area...

.

The village website claims "... it has a history steeped in stories of piracy

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...

 and smugglers".
Eastchurch is styled the 'home of British aviation' as Eastchurch airfield saw the first controlled flight by a British pilot on British soil.

The Eastchurch airfield played a significant role in the history of British aviation from 1909 when Frank McClean acquired Stonepits Farm, on the marshes across from Leysdown, converting the land into an airfield for members of the Aero Club of Great Britain.

The Short brothers

Short Brothers

Short Brothers plc is a British aerospace company, usually referred to simply as Shorts, that is now based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Founded in 1908, Shorts was the first company in the world to make production aircraft and was a manufacturer of flying boats during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s...

, Horace, Eustace and Oswald, built aircraft at Battersea

Battersea

Battersea is an area of the London Borough of Wandsworth, England. It is an inner-city district of South London, situated on the south side of the River Thames, 2.9 miles south-west of Charing Cross. Battersea spans from Fairfield in the west to Queenstown in the east...

 to be tested at the site; later Moore-Brabazon

John Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara

John Theodore Cuthbert Moore-Brabazon, 1st Baron Brabazon of Tara, GBE, MC, PC was an English aviation pioneer and Conservative politician...

, Professor Huntington, Charles S.