Lydd may literally be a place 'at the gates'. Its first recorded form of Hlidum in 774 suggests a root in the dative plural form of Saxon 'hlid' - 'gate'.
The church of Lydd, dedicated to All Saints, was long thought to be Saxon in origin, but recent studies have dated the oldest section to 475AD, making it Romano-British. In the 15th Century, a tower was added with four asymmetrical spires. The church was adorned with paintings and writings provided by Churchwarden John Marketman in 1611. The interior was restored in the eighteenth century. In 1940, the chancel of the church was destroyed by a direct hit from a bomb; the attack occurred at 4:07 PM on the 15th October, which is when the church clock stopped. Additional bombing attacks in 1944 caused further damage, and painstaking repairs were made using the original bricks.
The branch line to Dungeness was opened on 7th December 1881: passengers went as far as Lydd, whilst freight was permitted to traverse the whole stretch to Dungeness. It was not until 1st April 1883 that passenger services were extended to the coast.
Before World War I Lydd became an important artillery practice camp. Experiments with high explosives carried out on the shingle wastes around 1888 led to the invention of the explosive Lyddite. Lydd was at one time a garrison town, and the area is still an important training ground for the military. Lydd is also the site of an airfield, the first constructed in Britain after World War II.
A pumping station was built at Lydd, linking Dungeness with a Petroleum pipeline from Walton-on-Thames. Although top secret at the time, this was part of the project Pluto: 'Pipe line under the ocean'.
