The car park is free on Sundays, so that’s when we usually go. You can walk through the park/heritage area, along the river and behind the old warehouses. You can keep walking through the industrial area to meet up the canal. At this point turn left if you want to continue along the Saxon Shore Way. The Canal Tavern, back near the yachting area, has a pool table and allows dogs.
Park the car on the junction of Norfolk Rd, Wharf Rd and Mark Lane and just walk alongside the canal, with the rail tracks on the other side. There is very little traffic. The road turns into a cycle path. It smells sometimes as you pass the sewage works but that doesn’t last long. You can also walk down the road where the paddocks start and before the rifle range. This leads you to the Thames and you can walk for miles along the bank. I really like the industrial feel of this walk even though it leads into the marshes.
We’ve only been here once, winter 2010, so there is more to explore. There is a small apple orchard on site.
Chartwell is the family home of Churchill. It is managed by the National Trust. Dogs are allowed in the gardens, which are large enough to make it worth a visit. A very busy place in the summer. We have visited on Boxing Day two years running, so for us that’s a tradition.
A lot was happening here when we first went on New Years Day 2013 – families, dogs, a pony, a kids motorbike, a model air plane and a small pony trap. Although it had been raining it was not too muddy but you’d want the right shoes to walk across the fields. There is a paved path through some areas. In summer dogs can swim south of the bridge and it seems shallow enough for small dogs.
OK so we like Tankerton – even when it’s cold…
Reculver once occupied a strategic location at the north-western end of the Wantsum Channel, between the Isle of Thanet and the Kent mainland. This led the Romans to build a small fort there at the time of their conquest of Britain in AD 43. In the 2nd century they built a larger fort, or “castrum”, called Regulbium which later was part of the chain of Saxon Shore forts. After the Romans left in the early 5th century Reculver became a landed estate of the Anglo-Saxon kings of Kent. The site of the Roman fort was given over for the establishment of a monastery dedicated to St Mary in AD 669. King Eadberht II of Kent was buried there in the AD 760s. During the Middle Ages Reculver was a thriving township with a weekly market and a yearly fair, and it was a member of the Cinque Port of Sandwich. The twin spires of the church became a landmark for mariners known as the “Twin Sisters”, supposedly after daughters of Geoffrey St Clare. In the 19th century a copy of the facade at Reculver was built for the St John’s Cathedral in Parramatta, Sydney. Reculver declined as the Wantsum Channel silted up, and coastal erosion claimed many buildings constructed on the soft sandy cliffs. The village was largely abandoned in the late 18th century and most of the church was demolished in the early 19th century. Barnes Wallis’s bouncing bombs were tested in the sea off Reculver in WWII.
These are woods that back onto Jeskyns and lie across from Shorne. As well as the dense areas of trees, the site has open grass areas and ponds. During the Second World War an RAF camp was constructed in the wood. Some original structures still remain from this period. The site is also home to a bronze age barrow which has been classified as a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
Another great park not far from home. The park was originally set out as a private estate and its design has been attributed to Capability Brown and to a Mr Richmond. An wealthy merchant, John Boyd, purchased the site and built Danson House, designed by Robert Taylor (the architect of the Bank of England) in the style of a classic Palladian villa, between 1762 and 1767. There is a large lake, fields, various gardens, a tea room and pub. Nearby to William Morris’s Red House.
With Mum, September 2012.