Kent July 2012

We decided to make another visit to Kent (we went down in 2011) to the area where I spent my childhood. We travelled down on the 12th July and returned on 16th July. We stayed at the same caravan club CL in Halling as the previous year. Our trip coincided with a long period of very rainy weather. Luckily the site seems to drain well and we had no problem with getting on and off the site. We had three main objectives for this trip. The main one was to visit the Kent County Show, we also wanted to meet up with my cousin Trevor who was over from Cyprus and I also wanted to visit some of the burial places where my relations are laid to rest. The later purpose may seem a bit strange but I felt that I would like to see, for instance, the place where my father's ashes were scattered.

Also whilst we were in Kent we visited the churches at Meopham and Cuxton. I took a number of pictures of grave stones that referred to either my family or people that my family knew well. These were really only of interest to me personally so I haven't included them. I wasn't able to find the grave of my Auntie Florrie and it may be that her grave is unmarked, I intend to follow this up with the clerk that looks after the Meopham Church Yard

The people who own the caravan site also own a number of old coaches and buses that they were taking to the county show so we got a preview when they got them out ready for their journey..

The show was on for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we had decided that we would prefer to go on the Saturday which turned out to be very lucky as on the other days the car parks were closed early due to the condition of the ground. Another lucky thing was that the people who owned the caravan site were able to give us tickets for the show which saved us quite a large sum. We managed to get round virtually the whole show before the rain returned. The show had all the usual attraction and if the weather had been more agreeable it would have been brilliant.

One thing that I hadn't seen before was where there was a large pool of water and dogs were retrieving balls after taking flying leaps into the pool. The dogs certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves...

Another series of interesting exhibits were ones of handmade clocks including one where a ball bearing rolls along a track to keep the time... 

On the Friday we visited Allhallows where you can look out over the Thames Estuary towards Southend and see the shipping making it's way up and down the river...

Our next port of call was Upnor. Although having lived nearby for many years I don't remember ever having visited Upper Upnor before. Upper Upnor comprises a village street leading to Upnor Castle and has many houses displaying Kentish weatherboarding, as well as some terraced streets formerly used by the MOD. It is on Chatham Reach of the Medway directly opposite St Mary's Creek. It's a fascinating area and looks as if it may well have featured in films etc., as it's mainly unspoilt...

Later on Friday we went to Bluebell Hill where there is a lovely view over the Medway valley towrds Aylesford and it's paper mill...

Nearby is the Medway Crematorium. The crematorium covers 14 acres and is a mix of woodland, shrub beds, formal planting and grass beneath large and stately trees. This is where my father was cremated and his ashes were scattered in a quiet woodland glade.

On the Sunday we visited some local seaside places. The first was Sheerness, this turned out to be less than successful as there didn't seem to be an easy way to reach the sea from the main town. We did go past the town and found an area where you could look out over the estuary but gave up on the actual town. We then went to Leysdown which turned out to be a lively place with lots of amusement arcades. There was free side street parking and one slightly strange thing was that Burgers, Hot Dogs and Ice creams were all priced at a pound which seemed quite reasonable.

Our final seaside destination was the resort of Herne Bay a real traditional British seaside town. There used to be a huge pier at Herne Bay but the centre section of the pier was torn away by a storm in 1978 leaving the far end isolated in the sea. The landward section has recently had a lot of work done and looks very smart. It appears that various shows are held on the large area of tarmac now available. 

Herne Bay front from the northern end (where there is some free parking!)

There's a large 'bandstand' on the front and a harbour has been formed by the use of thousands of tons of rock. We enjoyed our short stay at Herne Bay and finished off the day with a tasty but reasonably priced roast dinner at a pub in the Whetherspoons chain.

Despite some of the weather this was another happy journey down memory lane and we look forward to visiting Kent again before too long.