By Karen Emery MITG April 2025 “The skies over Thanet are the loveliest in all Europe”. As a resident of the northeast coast of Kent this is certainly my own, biased opinion, but it was someone with infinitely greater expertise who expressed the sentiment over 200 years ago. The declaration was made by one of our most famous English painters, …
Queen Camilla unveils new statue of Aphra Behn
by Claire Cardy MITG February 2025 I and some of my fellow guides were in Canterbury on the 25th February 2025 to witness Her Majesty the Queen unveiling a new statue of the 17th Century writer Aphra Behn. She is widely regarded as the first English female writer to earn her living from writing. She is also said to have …
Religious Ruins in South-East England
by Robert Sissons November 2024 There is something romantic about a ruined church or abbey. Shakespeare wrote about ‘bare, ruin’d choirs’ and Victorian artists loved to include them in their paintings. Today it is unlikely that English Heritage would permit any of our beautiful medieval churches to fall into ruin, but in the past many have succumbed to dereliction, decay …
Midsummer delights in South East England
The month of June brings thoughts of quintessential summertime relaxation: tennis and croquet, strawberries and pimms, cricket on the green and bells pealing from a nearby church. Discover the delights of Kent, Surrey and East & West Sussex in the company of one of our talented Blue Badge Guides. We’ve just seen a key world championship in Hastings – the …
Days out by train
by Pat Langford April 2024 Keeping a low carbon footprint is an important factor for a growing band of travellers. If you like the idea of having a great day out from London to some of the beautiful sights of Sussex, without using a car or coach, here are some ideas for ‘Days Out by Train’. To make your day …
Celebrating English Tourism Week
Places to visit all over the country are celebrating this month for English Tourism Week between 15-24 March 2024. • £88.93 billion was spent on tourism in England in 2022. The South East attracted £10bn of this spend- second only to London at £24bn. And a good portion of our visitor economy is derived from the London market. Tourism is …
Uncovering a stained glass masterpiece in the heart of Sussex
Tanya Williams explores the contemporary work of Irish stained glass Master Harry Clarke.
Love is in the air
Take the chance to discover even more places to visit in the South East of England; Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex and Surrey.
Painshill English Landscape Garden – Designed to Delight
by Karen Emery February 2024 As tour guides, we are used to employing words to indicate visual beauty. We might also extol the picturesque nature of a location or preview a truly sublime experience. However, had you been a tourist in the polite society of the eighteenth century, you had better have used these terms with care, lest you expose …
Art in the South East of England
January 2024 It has has been a special year for this corner of England – the Turner Prize, one of the leading prizes in contemporary art was awarded to Jesse Darling at the Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne in December 2023 as part of the Centenary celebrations for the gallery. Housed in the Devonshire Quarter of the town in modern purpose-built …