A few facts about Whitstable and oysters:

• The 2009 Whitstable Oyster Festival contained a record number of individual events. It featured on TV and Radio broadcasts as well as in glossy magazines and the national press.
• Whitstable harbour was the world’s first railway connected port.
• The oyster is both male and female, but never both at the same time.
• Spawn is emitted from an oyster in immense quantities, like a puff of smoke, estimated to contain from 800,000 to some millions of organisms.
• The oyster’s worst enemy is the five-fingers (starfish) which can force an oyster shell open.
• Whitstable was at one end of the first steam driven passenger railway in the world.
• Early steam engines used coke, not coal. Whitstable harbour had two coke ovens which produced the coke from coal brought to Whitstable from Sunderland in colliers by our mariners.
• The world’s first railway season ticket was produced by the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway - known locally as the Crab & Winkle line.
• The remaining Whitstable Oyster Smacks or Yawls are based in Whitstable, Faversham, Scotland and the Bahamas.
• Not all of Whitstable’s beach and foreshore is owned by the Crown. The Royal Grant of 1793 passed ownership of some beaches to the Free Dredgers of Whitstable.
• The sea diving helmet and suit were invented in Whitstable. The Whitstable Divers travelled around the world salvaging sunken ships, including the Mary Rose.
• There are two types of Whitstable Natives - The oysters that have matured on our sea beds and the members of the old Whitstable families, descendants of the oystermen and mariners of the town. There are pearls amongst both.
• 400 years ago the lower areas of Whitstable were swampy salt marshes - The sea has tried to take them back several times.
• 2000 year old oyster shells found in Italy have been proved to have originated in Whitstable.
• Many of the old weatherboard cottages near the beach were built by local fishermen for around £100.
• The alleyways in Old Whitstable were the spaces left for the oystermen to get to the beach or the shops (and pubs!).
• Whitstable is the only place of that name in the world.
• The Wind-Turbines off Whitstable, when built, were the most expensive array of wind-turbines in the UK.
• Sustainability? Organic? Renewable Energy? The Whitstable Oystermen farmed and replenished the oyster beds for centuries using only the power of the wind and their own hard labour. Oysters actually filter and clean the sea water.