[2] While the inland areas are devoted to farming, the modern village expanded in the 19th century as a fishing community.

[3] As at Deal and Walmer to the north, the steeply shelving shingle beach posed a challenge to the ingenuity of local fishermen, who installed fixed capstans along the shore in order to haul their boats out of the water.

Kingsdown was also at the southern end of the important anchorage known as The Downs, which is sheltered between the coast of Kent and the Goodwin Sands that lie offshore to the east.

In 1926, the first woman to swim the English Channel, 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle, made landfall at Kingsdown, after a 35-mile crossing (the direct distance is 21 miles) in record time.

The chalk, which dates from the Cretaceous period, is a natural aquifer that forms the source for Kingsdown Water, which is extracted to the north west of the village.

The Kingsdown foreshore is the most southerly point of a shingle bank and flood plain that stretches north to the Isle of Thanet.

Kingsdown has numerous local public footpaths and lies on both the Saxon Shore Way and the White Cliffs Country Trail.