County in England
Kent
Kent was once Hell's Corner, the front line for invaders, and now it's the Garden of England, where Londoners came by the trainload to pick hops.
Key information
- County
- Kent
- Nation
- England
- Population
- about 1.6 million (2021 Census)
- Known for
- White Cliffs of Dover, Canterbury Cathedral, hops and orchards, the Channel ports
- What locals are called
- Men and Maids of Kent (east of the Medway) and Kentish Men and Maids (west of it)
- Famous people
- Christopher Marlowe, William Harvey, Charles Dickens (who grew up in Chatham), Orlando Bloom
- Football clubs
- Gillingham, Maidstone United, Dartford, Ebbsfleet United
About Kent
The county that gets the first knock on the door
Kent sticks out into the Channel, so almost everyone who ever wanted to get into Britain has come through it. Julius Caesar's legions landed near Deal in 55 BC. Legend says the Anglo-Saxon brothers Hengist and Horsa came ashore at Ebbsfleet in the fifth century, and the Kingdom of Kent grew into one of the early English powers. In 597 St Augustine arrived on a mission from Rome and set up at Canterbury. That is why the Archbishop of Canterbury still leads the Church of England. The county motto is Invicta, "unconquered". It goes back to a story that the men of Kent met William the Conqueror with moving woodland and bargained for their old rights. It is a lovely tale, and Kent has told it for centuries.
Murder in the cathedral, and the world's most famous road trip
On 29 December 1170 Archbishop Thomas Becket was killed by knights inside Canterbury Cathedral. Within a few years he was a saint, and Canterbury became one of the great pilgrimage destinations of Europe. Geoffrey Chaucer turned that pilgrim traffic into The Canterbury Tales. The cathedral is still the centrepiece of the city, with the medieval streets and the old city walls around it. Kent's other great churches and castles include Rochester Cathedral and Castle, Leeds Castle, and Hever Castle, where Anne Boleyn grew up.
Why the whole of London went hop-picking in Kent
Hops are the climbing plant that gives beer its bitterness, and Kent grew them on a huge scale. The round oast houses with their white cowls, where hops were dried, are some of the most recognisable buildings in the county. Every September, families from London's East End travelled down for what was part working holiday, part harvest, living in huts on the farms and picking by hand. Mechanisation ended the tradition, but it lives on in family memories across south-east London. The brewing carries on. Shepherd Neame in Faversham has been brewing there for centuries. Kent also grows apples, cherries and Kentish cobnuts, and Whitstable's oysters have been famous since Roman times.
Hell's Corner, Dunkirk and the first people across the Channel
Kent's closeness to France has made it Britain's front line. In 1940 it was known as Hell's Corner, and the Battle of Britain was fought in the skies overhead, with fighter stations such as Hawkinge and Manston at the heart of it. Dover Castle's tunnels held the command centre that planned the Dunkirk evacuation, Operation Dynamo. Chatham Dockyard built some of the Royal Navy's greatest ships, among them HMS Victory, launched in 1765. The Channel crossing has its firsts too. Captain Matthew Webb swam from Dover to France in 1875, the first person to do it without artificial aid. In 1909 Louis Blériot flew in from France and landed near Dover. The Channel Tunnel to Folkestone opened in 1994. The White Cliffs of Dover are Kent's best-known sight, and for many returning travellers the first thing they see of home.
Bat and trap, hoodening and a lime tree in the outfield
Kent has some wonderfully odd traditions. Bat and trap is a pub game with a wooden trap that flips a ball, and Canterbury has its own leagues. Hoodening is an old Christmas custom of a wooden horse's head on a pole, carried round the east of the county. Kent County Cricket Club, founded in 1870, has produced greats such as Frank Woolley, Colin Cowdrey and Derek Underwood. At the St Lawrence Ground in Canterbury a lime tree stood inside the boundary rope until it fell in a storm in 2005. Fielders had to play around it. For football, Gillingham, Maidstone United, Dartford and Ebbsfleet United fly the flag.
Gardens, shingle and seaside stories
The Garden of England title is deserved. At Sissinghurst Vita Sackville-West and her husband created one of Britain's most admired gardens. Chartwell, near Westerham, was Winston Churchill's family home, where he painted and built walls. Dickens spent part of his boyhood in Chatham and later lived at Gad's Hill Place near Rochester, where he died in 1870. He also loved Broadstairs, which still holds a Dickens festival each year. Out on the south coast Dungeness is a huge shingle headland with a power station and the miniature Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. Derek Jarman made his shingle garden there at Prospect Cottage. Margate has Turner Contemporary, named for J. M. W. Turner, who raved about the skies there, and the Dreamland amusement park keeps the seaside tradition going.