Holidays

Kent 2026

The Castles, Historic Houses & Heritage of Kent

51 of our members braved the June “heat dome” to make our five day holiday trip to Kent, entitled “Castles, Historic Houses and Heritage of Kent” As always the schedule was busy and full of different experiences. En route we visited Ightham Mote, a superb moated manor house dating from 1330, with a spectacular Great Hall and Tudor Chapel, before making our way to our hotel on the seafront at Dover.

Our blue badge guide, Wilf, joined us on day two to take us to two of the promised castles, Dover and Walmer, the latter being the elegant home and residence of the Warden of the Cinque Ports, often used by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother when she was Warden.

A guided tour of Canterbury city and the cathedral preceded the next castle, Leeds Castle, famously set on a moated island. Scotney and Sissinghurst Castles completed the set, the latter being the home of Vita Sackville-West who conceived the stunning gardens.

Our last historic house was Knole. Because of the intense heat we had the house more or less to ourselves, giving us the opportunity to experience its fantastic Jacobean rooms, including two amazing bed chambers, a long gallery with numerous paintings and a bedroom with solid silver furniture.

Towards the end of the holiday, we thought back to Dover Castle and its key role in our history, as the site of an early Roman settlement when they came to our shores; featuring again after the Norman invasion of 1066; where in the 1790’s tunnels were made to house troops preparing for invasion from Napoleonic France and, much later, these same tunnels were the nerve centre for organising the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940. Kent is the gateway to Britain which we came to appreciate most clearly when we visited the Battle of Britain memorial honouring those young men who lost their lives in that same year.
A most moving experience.
Viviane Fairbank