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A Kaleidoscope of Kent Brian Fagg’s ‘Gems of Kent’, organised by the Lynsted with Kingsdown Society on Wednesday April 9th 2008, attracted a near capacity audience to Greenstreet Methodist Church. Brian, a retired surveyor and respected historian first set the scene by reminding us of past famous residents of our county from Lord Nelson to Winston Churchill. During the evening we were treated to a kaleidoscope of slides across Kent from the Straits of Dover to the outskirts of Greater London. As the talk proceeded we travelled from the familiar Canterbury Cathedral to the unfamiliar iron railings from St. Paul’s Cathedral, now decorating a Lamberhurst street. We looked at the smallest public house at Aylesford, where only six people can stand at any one time and at Kent’s highest windmill in Cranbrook. There were reminders of wartime Kent with a defence pillbox in a front garden in Pluckley which looked as if it had been erected by Dad’s Army and a tank adorning a roundabout on the outskirts of Ashford. Some of the slides combined the old and the new such as one illustrating a modern Power Station viewed through the window of the Roman ruins of Richborough Castle. Some of the pictures showed typical local scenes such as a fruit orchard around Newington Church, a Kentish oast house and different aspects of the hop industry from the Hop Museum at Beltring. There were unusual pictures too. The audience was interested to see the line up of old red BT telephone boxes at Teynham Station waiting to be taken, by rail, to their new destinations all over the world. Many of those present remembered seeing this strange sight. My particular favourite ‘gem’ of the evening was a delightful slide taken inside St. Thomas a Becket church at Fairfield with its white painted box pews. It reminded me that I must go and see more of these unique Romney Marsh churches. This was, of course, a personal selection of Brian’s ‘gems’ and we must thank him for sharing these with us. However, I am sure that every person who came to the presentation could come up with his or her own personal gems of Kent, all of which would be different. We are truly lucky to live in a county that provides us with so much interesting history, archaeological treasures and breathtaking scenery. Norma Baxter |