If you live in Kent’s second smallest village, you can’t nip around the corner for a loaf of bread.

There are no shops, so to buy your groceries you have to have a car or be fit enough to walk a fair distance.

The local pub is so popular that some march for nearly an hour across fields to get to it - but that too is now at risk of closure.

Ripple, near Deal, has no bus service - or even main drains or a sewer.

It is home to just 154 properties - including thatched cottages dating back centuries - and has a population of 350 people, which is not set to increase any time soon.

There was large opposition to recent plans to build six new houses which, due to the lack of a sewer, would be served by cesspits. The proposals were snubbed last week by district planning councillors.

Ripple is probably one of the hardest places in Kent to get anything built. The village has had no development for 64 years.

Regarding the bid for six new homes, John Caisbrook, chairman of the parish council, told KentOnline: “It was the wrong development in the wrong location for the wrong village.

“It is the second smallest in Kent and has virtually no services. To put a housing estate in a village that has no public transport and has no shops does not make sense.”

The parish council, opposing the application, stressed that a car was needed for routine trips such as taking children to school, visiting GPs and entertainment trips.

Only Stourmouth, which has 291 people and is also in the Dover district, is smaller than Ripple.

To cope, locals simply adapt - getting lifts if they don’t have a car or just walking for however long it takes.

Brian Davies, landlord of the village's 18th century Plough Inn, said: “We have had no buses here for about two years. When we did they came just twice a week.

“For food, if you don’t have a car, you either get it delivered or get someone to drive you to the shops.”

Customer Andy Baldwin said: “You just have to own a car. I have to buy my food at Sainsbury’s in Deal or Tesco in Whitfield.

“But it’s lovely and peaceful in this village and when you move here you know what you are buying into.”

Barmaid Kirsty Webb lives in Walmer so walks for 15 minutes to work but prides herself on the huge popularity of the Plough Inn.

She told KentOnline: “People also come here from the outlying villages. It is packed on Friday nights and full for Sunday lunches. We even have rooms for people to say over.”

Terry Coffey, 81, has had a hip replacement but most days walks to the pub for up to 50 minutes through fields from his home in St Richard’s Road in Deal.

“That’s with weather permitting,” he said.

“Otherwise, my wife and I have a car. It’s a nice, lovely pub, with good company and the people behind the bar are terrific. It’s also a nice village with nice people.”

Ripple Farms Ltd, based in the village, applied for the homes across the road from the Church Lane pub.

It would have taken over a free car park for customers using the pub and Mr Davies was one of those opposing the application.

But the landlord, who runs but does not own the Plough Inn, says the pub - despite its popularity among the punters KentOnline spoke to - will still have to close at the end of September.

Mr Davies says it cannot be saved because of general pressure on the hospitality trade and increased competition.

He added: “Also the applicants could appeal against the council’s decision and win. It is just not viable.”

Customer Paul Doolin, 62, an ex-miner from the Bettshanger and Tilmanstone Collieries in the 1980s, said: “I have been a customer here over the last 40 years and it has firmly been my local since I recently retired as a scaffolder.

“Without this pub I feel I’d have nowhere else to go.”

The district council has made the pub, which will be exactly 300 years old next year, an asset of community value.

This was done last October and means that villagers have six months to raise money to buy it before it goes on the open market.

The scheme for the six homes was discussed at Dover District Council’s planning committee on Thursday, July 11.

It was voted against unanimously and the reasons included protecting the countryside and avoiding harm to the landscape and character of the area.

The council received 51 letters of objection and some protesters said that it would also lead to traffic congestion including from lorries emptying septic tanks.

Ripple Parish Council also said power and broadband networks are already under strain from demand, so new homes with all of the technology they will demand will be too much for the current infrastructure.

But council planners also received 15 letters of support for the application.

The writers said housing was needed, there would be no significant loss of farmland and the development would not disrupt the public or wildlife.

Planning officers had recommended approval of the scheme, which had been reduced from the original plan in 2022 for nine homes. But councillors voted to reject the proposals.

Ripple is an ancient village of Saxon origin and its name comes from ripel, an old English word for strip of land.

Julius Caesar’s army camped there after the Roman invasion of Britain in 55BC, with the landing in Deal. They dug an earth fort near the site of the present church.

Buried in the graveyard of St Mary the Virgin Church is Sir John French, the 1st Earl of Ypres, Commander-in-Chief of the British Expeditionary Force in the First World War.

On his former family estate is a campus for the independent Ripplevale School group for 11- to 18-year-old boys. The state Ripple Primary School closed in 2007 due to low pupil numbers.

A cottage, once named the Dovecote, bears the date of 1647. Properties in Portland Terrace in Church Lane are more than 100 years old and were originally built for farm workers. The last development in the village was Sunnyside Close, built in 1960.

The present village hall was opened in the 1950s.

Ripple also has a parlour for the Solley’s Ice Cream family business and its own bar called The Pub at Solley’s.

One of the most distinguished buildings is the privately owned Raspberry Cottage in Chapel Lane, complete with a thatched roof.