The coastguard service today plays a key, highly respected, role in protecting our coastline.

Yet hidden in its origins is an aggressive, ruthless force which once left Kent's beaches, literally, covered in blood in the pursuit of their goals.

Unpopular with locals and brutal in the execution of their duties, the Coast Blockade Service were not a group of men you wanted to get on the wrong side of.

Along the coast of the county they pulled guns, swords and knives against their enemy: smugglers.

Kent's history with smuggling has been well documented over the years and, of course, it continues today.

But rather than contraband being stashed in hidden compartments of lorries and cars, in the 19th century it was a case of boats from the continent sailing to our shores and off-loading their supplies of spirits, tobacco, tea and the likes of silk and lace on quiet or isolated beaches.

All were highly taxed items and by taking an unofficial route, the smugglers could make significant profit selling them on the black market.

This was a small boat problem of a bygone age.

By 1816, it was estimated the British government was losing around £2 million (equivalent to approximately £128 million in 2023) in revenue due to smuggling along the Kent and Sussex coasts. Fifty years earlier, it was thought about half of all spirits consumed were from smuggled sources.

This was an era unlike that we know today. There was no Coastguard and the battle against smuggling had been spread across a number of government departments.

In 1809 the Preventative Water Guard was formed and controlled by the Treasury. It comprised of ships stationed off the South East coast designed to spot and intercept any suspicious looking boats heading to our shores.

But there was a key flaw to its operation. When the weather was bad, the Water Guard tended to remain indoors. Which was, of course, a window of opportunity smugglers along our coastline became acutely aware of and exploited.

"From hefty fines to imprisonment, repeat offenders could even find themselves shipped off to a penal colony..."

So, in 1816, Captain John McCulloch of the Royal Navy proposed to the Admiralty it create a shore-based service to patrol the coastline of Kent and Sussex.

The Coast Blockade Service was born. Its role was to keep a beady-eye out and ensure every boat which landed could prove duty had been paid on its cargo - as well as identifying and intercepting any suspicious activity. Could it go where all others had failed and smash the illicit trade?

Its reputation certainly was quickly established.

Those recruited needed to be no stranger to engagement in violent confrontation. This was a big business they were seeking to tackle and those captured - or implicated - faced heavily punishment. From hefty fines to imprisonment, repeat offenders could even find themselves shipped off to a penal colony.

Efforts to tackle the trade were also hampered by its popularity among the local population. Smuggled goods equated to cheaper prices for premium items. There was plenty of suggestion key local dignitaries had a vested interest in the uninterrupted supply of smuggled goods. The Coast Blockade Service would have its work cut out.

Recruited from the Royal Navy and reserve officers, those signing up would be positioned in the Martello Towers sited along the coast and secure watch-houses.

To give an indication of what it encountered, in September 1821 in what was then known as Marsh Bay (now known as St Mildred's Bay), in Westgate, near Margate, around 60 smugglers - many of whom were armed in case of interception - were waiting on the then isolated beach for a consignment to arrive by boat.

As the sun set, they awaited a sign of light from the sea to suggest their cargo was approaching.

But no sooner had the smugglers spotted it, an eagle-eyed member of the Coast Blockade did too - and summoned reinforcements.

Heavily outnumbered, the law enforcers descended on the beach at which point a violent clash ensued - guns were fired, cutlasses unsheathed. Such was its ferocity, the gunfire and flashes could be seen along the coast in Margate.

By the time the situation had died down, three of the Coast Blockade team were wounded, two of them seriously. One with lacerations to his face after his cutlass was forced from his hand and used against him.

The smugglers, who had fled leaving more than a dozen casks of illicit spirits on the beach and in the surf, had also taken a number of injuries - a fact testified by the blood splattered across the beach leading those to suspect some had been mortally wounded.

In that same year, there had been a clash between the Coast Blockade and some 60 smugglers unloading spirits at Herne Bay, while in Sandgate, near Folkestone, 400 smugglers were interrupted and a fierce gunfight erupted which left 11 smugglers dead and two to die later from their injuries.

This was a brutal war.

Yet with almost 3,000 men in its ranks, it soon became omnipresent along the Kent coastline and it put a significant squeeze on the smugglers' activities.

By 1822, the government had decided to launch the Coastguard Service - an amalgamation of all the various elements employed in protecting the coastline.

Such was the Coastal Blockade Service's success in Kent, it was not disbanded and morphed into the Coastguard Service until 1831.

Today it forms part of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, itself an executive agency of the Department for Transport.

Its focus is on providing a 24-hour maritime and coastal search and rescue operation.

Coastal defence duties come under the remit, now, of the Royal Navy, law enforcement the local police forces which ring the county and maritime border control, Border Force.