Kent
The home of Winston Churchill’s house, Chartwell, and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s seat in Canterbury Cathedral, Kent has a range of attractions. Activities such as walking can be enjoyed amongst the Dungeness Nature Reserve (where you may find a fossil or two!) or even in Chatham along the dockyard. There’s Leeds Castle and the breathtaking White Cliffs of Dover which also have to be visited!
Kent captured in beautiful watercolour
Chartwell
Chartwell is a country house and for over forty years it was the home of Winston Churchill, an inspirational statesman, writer, orator and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He bought the property in September 1922 and lived there until shortly before his death in January 1965. Filled with treasures from every aspect of Churchill’s life, the house at Chartwell provides an opportunity to explore the home of one of Britain’s greatest leaders.
Knole
Knole is a historic house and medieval deer park situated in the market town of Sevenoaks. It is one of Britain’s most important and complete historic homes with a colourful past as an Archbishop’s palace, the former hunting ground of Henry VIII, the home of the Sackville family for 400 years and a source of literary inspiration for Virginia Woolf. Within Knole's internationally important collection are paintings by Reynolds, Gainsborough, Lely and Kneller; dazzling 17th-century state furniture.
Sissinghurst
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent in England, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is designated Grade I on Historic England's register of historic parks and gardens.
Dungeness
Dungeness is unique – no boundaries, a desolate landscape with wooden houses, power stations, lighthouses and expansive gravel pits. Yet it possesses a rich and diverse wildlife within the National Nature Reserve in one of the largest shingle landscapes in the world. Home to many uncommon plants, insects and spiders. It is also a great place to see migratory birds in the spring and autumn.
Chartham
Chartham is located on the Great Stour river and vale of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The river provided power for the paper mills until some point before 1955. Paper making has been a major occupation for the last 625 years; the mill dates from the late eighteenth century.
Cranbrook
Known as the 'Capital of the Weald', Cranbrook is a pretty settlement with a medieval layout of streets and alleys. Many buildings date from the 15th century through to the 19th century. The Union Mill is probably Cranbrook's most famous landmark because it is one of the most superior smock mills in the UK and amazingly, still in working order.
Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, is one of the oldest and most famous Christian structures in England. It forms part of a World Heritage Site. It is the cathedral of the Archbishop of Canterbury, currently Justin Welby, leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Its formal title is the Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of Christ at Canterbury.
Oast Houses
An oast house is a building designed for kilning (drying) hops as part of the brewing process. They consist of a rectangular one or two storey building (the "stowage") and one or more kilns in which the hops were spread out to be dried by hot air rising from a wood or charcoal fire below. The drying floors were thin and perforated to permit the heat to pass through and escape through a cowl in the roof which turned with the wind.
Leeds Castle
Leeds Castle has been a Norman stronghold; the private property of six of England’s medieval queens; a palace used by Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon; a Jacobean country house; a Georgian mansion; an elegant early 20th century retreat for the influential and famous; and in the 21st century, it has become one of the most visited historic buildings in Britain.
The Pantiles
The Pantiles is a Georgian colonnade in the town of Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent. It includes a variety of specialist shops, art galleries, cafés, restaurants and bars as well as a Farmers market held outside every other Saturday. Throughout the summer jazz bands play outside on the bandstand attracting hundreds of people.
Ightham Mote
Ightham Mote is a National Trust medieval moated manor house set in a beautiful valley in the Kent countryside near Sevenoaks. Dating from around 1320, the house has seen many changes and been owned by medieval knights, courtiers to Henry VIII and high-society Victorians. The gardens are as equally diverse as the house - a formal lawn, flower borders, secret glades and a sweetly scented cuttings garden.
Dover
The White Cliffs of Dover, part of the North Downs formation, is the name given to the region of English coastline facing the Strait of Dover and France. The cliff face, which reaches a height of 106 metres (348 ft), owes its striking appearance to its composition of chalk accented by streaks of black flint. The cliffs, on both sides of the town of Dover in Kent, stretch for 13 kilometres (8 miles).