insideKENT Magazine Issue 22 - January 2014 | Page 103

Pocahontas Statue, Gravesend. ©Andy Barnes

White Cliffs of Dover

Shingle Beach, Dungeness

Royal St George's 1st Tee & Clubhouse, Sandwich

28. Penshurst Place, near Tonbridge, has been
home to the Sidney family for more than 450
years.
29. Penshurst’s formal garden is a rare surviving
example of Elizabethan design, but its records
go back even further to 1346, making it
among the oldest in private ownership.
30. 15th-century Lullingstone Castle in Eynsford
has been home to 20 generations of the Hart
Dyke family.
31. Visit Lullingstone today to see the UK’s first
ever World Garden of Plants.
32. Brogdale, near Faversham, is home to The
National Fruit Collections and a living gene
bank of over 4,000 varieties of apples, pears,
plums, cherries, cobnuts, currants and
quinces.

Royal Harbour, Ramsgate

35. Dover is the busiest port in the world and
saw 11.9 million passengers in 2012.
36. In 2016 Dover celebrates the 410th
anniversary of its establishment as a trust
port, by Royal Charter in 1606.
37. Ramsgate is the country’ only Royal Harbour,
s
a title it earned from King George IV.
38. The town also has its very own Mean Time.
39. Visit Gravesend and you can see the world’s
oldest remaining cast iron pier (1834).
40. The diving helmet was invented in Whitstable.
41. In 2001 Whitstable Museum and Gallery won
the international Nautiek Award for services
to diving history, the first time the trophy had
been awarded in the UK.

The Front Line of History
Maritime Heritage
33. The intriguing remains of the world’s oldest
known seagoing boat are on show at Dover
Museum: the 3,550-year-old Bronze Age
Boat.
34. The Historic Dockyard Chatham is the world’
s
most complete dockyard of the Age of Sail.
It also spans 80 acres of naval heritage and
400 years of maritime history.

42. Three out of five of the most important
invasions of Britain landed at Pegwell Bay.
43. A full-size replica Viking Ship at Pegwell Bay
commemorates the arrival of Hengist and
Horsa in 449 AD.
44. Dover, commanding the shortest sea crossing
to the continent, has been known for
centuries as the Key to England, a mark of
its strategic importance against invasion.
45. At Dover Castle you can experience life from
Roman times to World War II. The Secret

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Wartime Tunnels here include the only
underground barracks ever built in Britain,
dating from the time of the Napoleonic Wars.
46. Richborough was the main entry port for
legions invading in 43 AD, and you can relive
the early stages of conquest amid the
evocative ruins of Richborough Roman Fort.
47. The ‘Iron’ Duke of Wellington was once Lord
Warden of the Cinque Ports, which granted
him residence at Walmer Castle. You can still
see his original Wellington Boots there.
48. Kent has more 20th-century defensive
fortifications than any other county.
49. RAF Manston was the most bombed British
airfield during World War II. You can learn
more at RAF Manston History Museum,
Ramsgate.
50. The Battle of Britain Museum, near
Folkestone, houses the largest and most
enthralling collection of Battle of Britain
artefacts in the country.
51. The 'bouncing bomb’ was secretly tested off
of the coast at Reculver, Herne Bay, in 1943
before being used in the Dambuster raids.
52. You can see a prototype bouncing bomb in
Herne Bay Museum and Gallery.