“FOLKESTONE IS AN ART SCHOOL”

December 2025. Folkestone. Kent.

Mrs RM is planning a series of posts on the Kent coast, which by her definition starts at Rochester and skips Gillingham on the way to Whitstable and beyond. Gravesend will have something to say about that.

“We should go to Folkestone, only an hour.” I said. “You won’t recognise it“.

She didn’t. Ridiculed by Bill Bryson in “Notes From A Small Country“, their holiday trade ebbing way since the invention of cheap flights to Tirana Tenerife, Folkestone has reinvented itself with “culture”.

I hadn’t been since 2021 and a flying visit to the Bouverie Tap, but I was convinced the Creative Quarter and Harbour Arm would impress,

but the first half mile from the station is a succession of the sort of faded guest houses that defined the town at the start of the century.

And then you turn onto Grace Hill, and admire the string of churches,

and the plaques commemorating Hendrix and other legends,

admire the tiling on the Prince Albert (RIP), and it all makes sense.

“Ooh, that’s nice” says Mrs RM, admiring the Wetherspoons, oddly in the paper GBG but not the on-line version,

“It’s a Wetherspoons“.

She doesn’t quite believe me, so pops in to take a look.

I’d been in the Samuel Peto just before COVID hit,

and somehow missed the grandeur of this former Baptist church,

with rare downstairs loos and an organ which is contractually required to play an extract from a PJ Harvey album annually (rather like the Opera House in Tunbridge Wells has to perform an opera once a year).

Somehow, Mrs RM forgot to have a pint of that Batemans Salem Porter she’d loved in Eastbourne last month,

so she didn’t have to visit the Ladies,

and didn’t get the Hymn and Hyrs joke that the Baptists must have spent hours coming up with. Wasted.

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Published by retiredmartin

Retired NHS, doing long walks around UK and the world to record the great bits. Focused on Good Beer Guide pubs and live music.

20 thoughts on ““FOLKESTONE IS AN ART SCHOOL””

    1. I really meant the impression of Folkestone at the dawn of millennium was of faded guest houses repurposed for the homeless and underused hotels, but you’re right that the heyday of the town would be a century earlier.

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  2. “their holiday trade ebbing way since the invention of cheap flights to (Tirana) Tenerife”

    With this new digital ID scanner stuff at airports, that could change.

    “but I was convinced the Creative Quarter and Harbour Arm would impress,”

    It’s off to a slow start.

    “And then you turn onto Grace Hill, and admire the string of churches,”

    I think the name gave it away.

    ““It’s a Wetherspoons“.”

    (looks up)
    Blimey.

    “She doesn’t quite believe me, so pops in to take a look.”

    (looks down)
    Blimey!

    “and somehow missed the grandeur of this former Baptist church,”

    (looks down)
    Blimey! Squared!

    “and an organ which is contractually required to play an extract from a PJ Harvey album annually (rather like the Opera House in Tunbridge Wells has to perform an opera once a year).”

    (slow golf clap)

    “so she didn’t have to visit the Ladies,”

    (looks up AND down)

    Oh, well done them! 👏

    “and didn’t get the Hymn and Hyrs joke that the Baptists must have spent hours coming up with. Wasted.”

    LOL. There’s no accounting for taste. 😎

    Cheers

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    1. I think you’re right about the hassle of travel making people look closer to home.

      Folkestone, for one, looks bright and vibrant and has lots of interesting world food options along with the beach.

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      1. Not just “the hassle of travel making people look closer to home” but poverty too.
        A day at Trentham Gardens might be the only holiday a child growing up in the Potteries a century ago would expect.

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      2. My Mum liked Trentham Gardens when I bought them nights at the Trentham Hotel (Toby Carvery) 20 years ago.

        Talking of Trentham, I see I missed the opening of a new bod there (though I expect you mentioned it to me.

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  3. There is only one Faded Church on Grace Hill the building next door to the Baptist Church is the ex library
    .
    The Baptist church used to be the Art ,metalwork and Woodwork dept of my school where a 12 year old me fainted due to hypers sensitivity to the smell of wood glue,

    The library is ex due to damage from to the roof from Acidic Seagull Guano which could have been stopped with a bit of netting

    My mother can tut about .this for hours
    .
    Acidic Seagull Guano also played at the Metronome but did not get on the plaque due to “space issues”

    Why the tortuous route from Rye?

    Are you banned from New Romney due to association with Brapa`s scathing review of the Micropub?

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  4. Oh yes I forgot you mentioned walking from the station.
    .On visits to my mum she likes a day trip to Rye and fish and chips in Dungeness on the way back so that drive is imprinted on my mind.

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    1. You’re right, of course, he eviscerated that guest house in Dover !

      He hardly mentions Folkestone, but Paul Theroux is rude about that whole south-east coast of the late 20th century.

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  7. I have a weirdly soft spot for Folkestone. Go there once a year with my mate Mikey. I quite like the Spoons. And the East Kent Arms is quite an experience. No cask, though.

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      3. I’m not sure what went wrong there but I meant to suggest that that’s cask beer’s decline rather than keg making a pub good, but perhaps that’s stating the obvious !

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