Canterbury & South England Tourist Guide

11/10/2025

Ideal tour-guiding weather in October with a lovely group from the Kent Gardens Trust https://www.kentgardenstrust.org.uk/. Leading a specialist walk entitled 'Folkestone: Scenic Gardens for Discerning Visitors', we checked out the delightful 1928 Kingsnorth Gardens in a former quarry and the extraordinary 1921 Zigzag path down the cliff face created with an artificial rock covering of Pulhamite for scenic effect.

26/09/2025

Stunning even when skies are not so blue...

Beautiful view of Canterbury Cathedral, by on Instagram 💖
"Canterbury’s skyline wouldn’t be complete without the towering presence of the Cathedral 🏰✨ A masterpiece of history and faith standing proud above the city."

25/05/2025

85 Years ago in May 1940, the Local Defence Volunteers (renamed Home Guard in July the same year) were established in Britain. Their role to aid the army with home defence and by July over 1,500,000 volunteers were recruited. At the start they lacked modern weapons or proper uniforms, but all were keen to do their bit to keep 'Jerry' out of the country. Here in 'Frontline Kent', customers of our 'Britain at War' tour are sometimes lucky enough to meet the re-enactors at the historic 'Jackdaw' pub in Denton near Folkestone https://www.jackdawdenton.co.uk/about-us . The photo shows on the right a volunteer sporting a tan LDV armband, the other has the whistle, truncheon and sidearm of the wartime police force.

28/07/2024

75 Years ago today: Thanet welcomes the Danes!
The arrival of replica Viking ship 'Hugin' to Kent shores was greeted 'to the continuous cheering and waving of tens of thousands of people' as reported in the Thanet Advertiser of 29th July 1949.
The arrival and celebrations in a post-war Britain that was still subject to rationing is beautifully captured on this film https://www.britishpathe.com/asset/72724/
Hugin had been sailed and rowed by 50 Danes in historic costume and sporting specially grown beards all the way from Esbjerg to mark the arrival 1500 years earlier (449AD) of Hengest and Horsa, who by tradition gave the image of the prancing white horse as symbol of Kent https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/the-stories-behind-kents-white-horse-232108/

Whether you know it as The White Horse of Kent, the Invicta, or the Saxon Steed, the horse used across the county is linked to a number of legends.

09/06/2024

The gardens have a fascinating story that spreads back over 100 years

30/03/2023

An 'Elysium in Miniature' is how the newly created Dane John Gardens was described in 1790, when alderman John Simmons funded from his own fortune the first 'Public Walks' in Canterbury. An avenue of poplars, later replaced by limes, links two city gates and passes by the Ancient Monument the Dane John Mound which dates from before Roman times. What history there is in this space! Burials, executions, plague isolation, military drill and promenading gentry will all be featuring in the walk I am leading on behalf of Kent Garden Trust https://www.kentgardenstrust.org.uk/ for the Canterbury Festival 'Step into Spring' season this Sunday 2nd April2023. Get in touch if your group would like a similar in-depth walk or talk on a park or garden space in SE England.

16/10/2022

Canterbury 200 years ago: It was written that in the first half of the 19th Century, Canterbury’s St Augustine’s Abbey “reached its lowest point of degradation” - both physically and morally. And then on 16th October 1822 the ‘tower known as Ethelbert’s Tower…amounting in weight to many hundred tons, and nearly 70 feet in height, fell with most tremendous crash, cracking, with the shock…’
1822: the railway had not yet arrived, but the townscape had been changing – the High Street widened, new public walks and prison, hospital and markets, all precursors to the Victorian era to come.
Step back in time exactly 200 years to discover what a visitor to Canterbury would have seen: not a time for Medieval pilgrims nor Victorian industry but earnest effort towards improvement after the Napoleonic Wars. https://canterburyfestival.co.uk/whats-on/canterbury-1822/
Picture shows Ethelberts Tower 1812.

23/08/2022

Something a bit further afield than just Kent (following my personal interest in garden history and the development of tourism): a series of Zoom lectures on the Landscape of Spas in Britain. https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/british-spa-landscapes-tickets-397407405247 Some interesting ideas on just how important parks and gardens have always been to our enjoyment and well-being. You might be surprised that even Canterbury had a spa that was visited by that intrepid traveller Celia Fiennes in 1697 and drinking the water, but 'only tasting halfe a glass of it which I did not like'. Later in the 19th Century the chalybeate (iron-rich) water was offered to visitors to 'Mr Master's Exotic Nursery' next to the River Stour. Unfortunately they 'paved Paradise and put up a parking lot' - it's all buried under Pound Lane Car Park!

A series of 5 online talks on Tues @ 10.00 from 20th Sep exploring spa parks and gardens in Britain. £5 each or all 5 for £20.