The county of Kent, between London and the English Channel, is often called 'The Garden of England' - a tribute to its extensive fruit-growing regions, but also a marker of the county's attractive and varied countryside. With coast on three sides, Kent includes the famous White Cliffs of Dover with its view across the 22-mile wide Channel to the matching cliffs of France; the wide open spaces of Romney Marsh with its special collection of churches; and some of the first popular seaside destinations in Britain.

The history, context, and significance of all we shall see will be clearly explained by your guide Dr Andrew Thomson (see More About Us).

Kent & East Sussex
Tailor-made private tours around the castles, gardens, history and coast of South-East England

Dover Castle: Henry II's well-preserved stronghold atop the White Cliffs

Walmer Castle & Gardens: Country residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and scene of the death of the Duke of Wellington - see his camp-bed, and his famous boots!

Rochester Castle: Looking over the River Medway and Rochester Cathedral

Deal Castle - one of Henry VIII's new-style castles sited to stop enemy landings on the coast, and designed to withstand cannon-fire from ships
Leeds Castle - set in a stunning lake setting
Hever Castle - where Henry VIII wooed Anne Boleyn
Tonbridge Castle - with its strong Norman Keep in rich sandy colours
Upnor Castle - a late-Tudor gunfort overlooking the Medway estuary
Bodiam Castle - the much-photographed moated classic of late-medieval castle architecture (when Keeps had disappeared, replaced by a series of strongpoints on the Curtain Walls).

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Sissinghurst: Preserved from the 1930's by Vita Sackville-West

Scotney Castle - a landscaped garden around a lake with ruins of a castle
Great Dixter - beautiful gardens near Rye, set in the grounds of a medieval hall house

Emmett's Garden: A hillside setting overlooking the Weald

Goodnestone Park - a classic country house and garden 10 miles east of Canterbury

Chartwell: The country home of Winston Churchill

Canterbury: Medieval city with fine Cathedral - destination of pilgrims over the centuries

Ightham Mote: Charming country house built in stages from the 1300's onwards; surrounded by moat and gardens

Dover Museum - including a 3,500 year-old Bronze Age Boat
Old Soar Manor - remains of a late-13th century knight's manor house
Penshurst Place - with fine 14th century Great Hall
Richborough Roman Fort -
Lullingstone Roman villa -
Rochester - with castle, cathedral, and many sights associated with Charles Dickens who lived here as a boy
Royal Naval Dockyards at Chatham - where Nelson's HMS Victory was built
Battle of Britain sights - the cliff-top memorial; and preserved Spitfire and Hurricane aircraft at nearby Manston airfield

Battle of Hastings: Walk the 1066 battlefield in the grounds of Battle Abbey

The Whife Cliffs of Dover

Whitstable: Fishing port looking out over the Thames Estuary and the North Sea, famous for its oysters

Romney Marsh: With its Napoleonic Martello Towers, its sheep, its churches and its wide-open spaces.

Broadstairs - early seaside resort made famous in the books of Charles Dickens
Sandwich - one of the medieval Cinque Ports, with fine stock of medieval buildings and churches

Rye & Winchelsea: The Cinque Port of Rye and the medieval 'new town' of Winchelsea, founded by Edward I in the late 1200's