Above photo kindly supplied by Peter Checksfield, October 2014.

Above photos by Paul Skelton, 4 July,2012.

Above show signs in 2010.

White Stag sign left August 1990. Sign right 2014.

Above with thanks from Brian Curtis www.innsignsociety.com

Above photograph, March 2019, kindly taken and sent by Rory Kehoe.

Above photo kindly supplied by Peter Checksfield, August 2020.

In case anyone was interested in my findings on the New Inn at Monkton, now known as the White Stag!

Monkton- This Linear village of almost a mile in length has sustained successive communities since pre roman times.

As its name signifies it was literally the Monk's Village or lands, and the centre if the most profitable ecclesiastical manor in Thanet.

As well as being a corn growing hub, Monkton once had a salt mine and a fishing industry. It also had a collection of pubs, all but one now sadly defunct.

Village pubs are normally sited opposite churches but not in Monkton's case. The former "Royal Exchange Inn," by Miller's Lane, is 50 yards down from the 12th Century Church of St Mary Magdalene while the "White Stag" is at the Minster end of the 'Street'.

Around 1770 Monkton was on the main turnpike route to Ramsgate and coaches would stop at the Royal Exchange before continuing up Miller Lane to the "Prospect Inn" at Mount Pleasant. With the advent of the railway the Inn's staging function became redundant. The pub lingered on until 1893 before closing, seemingly after pressure from the local church based Temperance movement. So Monkton's complement of pubs was reduced to one - The White Stag.

When the Royal Exchange closed this holstery known as the New Inn, it was much smaller having begun life as a humble beer shop shortly after the Napoleonic Wars. The Duke of Wellington's Beer House Act of 1830 enabled any householder, for just two guineas per annum, to retail beer (and Beer only) between 4-am and 10-pm. It was naively believed that these 'Tom and Jerry shops' would wean the social drinker from the rot gut of the spirits to 'wholesome beer'. In practice tipplers became just as soaked on beer as they ever did on gin, and 'beer shops' acquired a reputation as disorderly houses.

The White Stag remained unnamed until 1872 when it was upgraded and formally given the name of the New Inn. A Century later the name change to the White Stag was inspired, not by the legendary deer of Domneva, but more prosaically by a local turkey farm ('stag' is the name for a male turkey). The 'Stag' is a cosy house, tastefully extended and renovated to include a dining room and games room. The rear toilet block was originally an old forge and stables dating from the beer shop days. Clearly its early proprietors courted the custom of the 19th century coach and carriage trade.

Indeed the 'Stag's' involvement with horses is represented by a series of photographs in the public bar depicting dobbin sharing a pint with the regulars. An old right of way permitted horses access to the stables at the rear via the bar!. The Pub has belonged to a succession of breweries including Flints of Canterbury and Fremlins but it now with Shepherds Neame. Date: Wed, 18 Jan 2006.

From the https://www.bbc.co.uk 29 December 2011.

Kent double murder mystery reviewed 20 years on.

Brenda Long and Alan Leppard were killed within nine months of each other.

The cases of a Kent man and woman, murdered nine months apart, are being reviewed, 20 years after their deaths.

Alan Leppard, 43, was shot outside the cottage the couple shared in Monkton near Ramsgate on 1 April 1991.

On 28 December 1991, the body of 42-year-old Brenda Long was discovered in the bath of the flat she moved to after the death of Mr Leppard. It is believed she was deliberately drowned.

There is still no known motive for the killings, say police.

Mr Leppard was shot in the chest with a 12-bore shotgun in Monkton Lane on Easter Monday.

Three weeks before the shooting two men were seen in the nearby White Stag public house asking about Mr Leppard.

Kent Police issued e-fits of the men and the case was featured on the BBC's Crimewatch programme.

Body in the bath.

After Mr Leppard's death, Ms Long moved to a flat in Cromwell Road, Whitstable.

Ms Long's sister saw her on Christmas Day 1991 and spoke to her again on Boxing Day.

Her body was found in the bath on 28 December.

Dave Stevens from the cold case review team said: "Initially her death looked like suicide, but a post-mortem examination established that she had diethyl ether in her bloodstream and marks around her face and mouth, which suggested that she had been put to sleep and then drowned."

As part of the review of the murder case, the team spoke to Nick Biddiss, a retired detective superintendent who was the senior investigating officer for both murders.

Mr Biddiss said: "You cannot look at one murder without looking at the other.

"Brenda Long was a key witness to the Alan Leppard murder that Easter weekend.

"In the nine months after Alan's death I regularly updated Brenda on the inquiry and, as a key witness to his murder, we had a duty of care to look after her welfare and safety."

Motive no closer.

Kent Police has renewed an appeal for information about the two murders.

Mr Stevens said: "Twenty years on we are still no closer to establishing a motive for either murder.

"We can't say definitively that the two deaths were linked but there is every chance there is a connection between the two."

He said that advances in DNA technology meant that information would be available to detectives that would not have been around 20 years ago.

"There was speculation at the time that this could have been a contract-style killing but there is nothing to suggest that either Alan or Brenda had any involvement with criminality.

"Unsolved murder cases are never closed," he said.