retiredmartin

August 2024. Canterbury.

The Grand Tour of Kent continued on Friday as we veered inland to Canterbury,

where we will later meet up with a mystery friend of this blog. Quite an arty friend, as it turns out.

The Bat & Ball, our bijou B & B (too many Bs) a mile south of the cathedral and right by the cricket ground, is a bit arty too.

Sadly, I’d arrived four years too late to visit the Bat & Ball in its former incarnation as the worst reviewed boozer in town.

I’d also turned up in the near month long gap between fixtures at the Spitfire Ground opposite. Cricket doesn’t help itself with such a ridiculous calendar meaning the smaller counties have hardly anything on in the warmer months.

Not that I cared, I wasn’t there for cricket, and nor was Dick (seen here with Dave), who’d found The Canterbury Local Beer Guide amongst the tourist tat in our bedroom.

A better map than a pub guide, bizarrely missing out the Bell and Crown that had so impressed me (and Italian tourists) last year.

Our target today in The Monument, out by West Station,

a rather charming walk up Old Dover Road and around the wall.

There’s a few towns in Britain I never quite feel I understand, and Canterbury is up there with Cobham and Caernarfon and Chatteris, to take just the Cs.

It’s twenty minutes to the ring road, but we dawdle for photos a dozen times,

as I steadily revise my opinion on a place I’d once looked at and thought the 60s town planners had done more damage than the Baedeker raids.

Great art, including this garage next to the Old City Bar,

and that wonderful mural of Robert Wyatt on Dover Street. Yes, yes, Canterbury Scene. OK, 19 minutes of noodling on Soft Manchine Third. But this is all the Robert you need;

The walk into Canterbury from the south reminds me of the stroll up Fulford Road into York, but the walls aren’t on the same level,

despite the odd random feature,

and a decent view or two.

“But what about the pubs ?” I hear you ask.