Canterbury Heritage Museum, Canterbury, Kent.

After the Guided Walking Tour, we went to the Canterbury Heritage Museum or you can visit this website Canterbury Museums.

The museum is open Wednesday – Sunday, 11:00am-5:00pm. Tickets are £8.00 for adults. But if you buy a combo ticket with the Roman Museum the price of the join ticket is £12.00. It is a saving of £4.00 in total, so I did this. The walking tour overran and finished at 3:45pm; but as this was the only time I could go to the museum, I went; even though I only had an hour to spend there. I think you do need a minimum of 1 ½ hours.  

The building in which the museum is located was built in the 14^th Century; originally as a hospital for the poor and sick. The building itself is pretty amazing and the oak beamed roof definitely has the “Wow” factor!


The upstairs of the museum is dedicated to the history of Canterbury/ England/ Britain. So starting from when the Romans came, St Augustine, the establishment of Christianity and Thomas Becket. There is actually a very nice and detailed tapestry on the history of St Thomas Becket. Then we move on to the reformation of the Christian faith in Britain including the destruction of the shrine. The relationship of Canterbury with the monarchy during the Tudor period and the reign of Elizabeth I is actually explained very well.

Downstairs focuses on Canterbury from the Victorian Period (I think) onwards. Here you can see:

• The original steam engine that powered the first ever passenger railway journey. It was built by Robert Stephenson, son of George (yes, the famous one). 
• The creators of many much loved children’s programmes are Peter Firmin and Oliver Postgate, who are originally from Canterbury. They recorded many episode of shows such as Bagpuss, Ivor the Engine and The Clangers in their shed. The original Bagpuss is here! Awwww!!
• We cannot forget another famous son Rupert the Bear.
• There is a large section dedicated to Canterbury during the War which is really poignant.

As this wasn’t covered in the tour I should probably have spent more time here.

I liked the museum very much. It is nice and small. The building is very nice too. The displays are interesting. It is a very interactive museum and there a lot of activities for children. Downstairs in the foyer, which is the area that focuses on the war, I could see a lot of tables and chairs set out for (school) children with different activities.

 

The problem is that I spent about 50 minutes upstairs and literally had to whiz around downstairs in 5 minutes. In hindsight, I realise that I should not have spent so long upstairs as a lot of the history was covered in the walking tour.  I’m not saying that you should do one and not the other. Definately go to both but just balance your time more correctly. Therefore, I didn’t really see anything properly downstairs, I just took a few pictures.  So, I am just a little bit annoyed at myself.

Read my other posts about my trip to Canterbury:

• Trip to Canterbury - An Overview
•  Eating and Accommodation
• Guided Tour of Canterbury
• Canterbury in Eight Dates

Canterbury in Eight Dates

Our tour guide, Andreas, from Canterbury Guided Tours was really brilliant. he was funny, knowledgeable and helpful. Our tour was an "interactive tour." But what was also really good was that he didn't just want use to learn a bunch of facts then forget about dear Canterbury, he wanted us to try and remember some key points.

So these are Andreas' Eight key dates in the history of Canterbury: 

1.  43 AD – Britain conquered by the Romans.
2. 410 – Romans left and returned to Italy.
3. 597 – Augustine came to Canterbury from Rome to establish Christianity.
4. 1066 – Norman invasion of Britain.
5. 1170 – On 29^th December, Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral.
6. 1538 – King Henry VIII changed the religion of Britain. The dissolution of Catholic faith and reformation of Christian Church.
7. 1830 – The world’s first passenger railway journey took place, from Canterbury to Whitstable.   

I can’t remember the specific 8^th date that Andreas told us (I’ve got a few) so I’m just going to add:

8. 1543 - Christopher Marlowe was born. The same year as one William Shakespeare

Read my other posts about my trip to Canterbury:

• Trip to Canterbury - An Overview
•  Eating and Accommodation
• Guided Tour of Canterbury

Guided Tour of Canterbury

On the day we arrived, we went on a walking guided tour of the city. Website http://www.canterburyguidedtours.com/. If you are in Canterbury for even just one day, you have to go on this tour. You will receive a comprehensive, interesting tour of the whole (historical) city. In summer the tours are 11am and 2pm, in winter only in the morning. Tickets cost £7.50. Apparently the ticket allows a discount at some places but when I asked at the places, they didn’t know anything about the discount!

Our tour guide was called Andreas, who was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. A walking history book! He made the tour interactive and kept repeating important dates, so that we would walk away with some information retained! 

Sights included:

• The Old Buttermarket (starting point).
• Taken inside the precincts of the Cathedral, but not the Cathedral itself, viewing of the King’s School.
• Around the narrow winding roads of Durovernum Cantiacorum.
• Interesting places: jutted houses, Tudor architecture, the wonky house, first inn in Canterbury, house of Mary Tourtel (Rupert, you’re a wonderful bear), the place where the plot to murder Thomas Becket was planned, residence of Mr Parker, Marlowe Theatre and much, much more.

You will not be disappointed.

Exploration: Canterbury – Eating and Accommodation.

Accommodation

We stayed at the House of Agnes. http://www.houseofagnes.co.uk which is  5 minutes from the train station.  

Parts of the house are over 600 years old and it was mentioned in a Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. It is a really, really lovely place to stay. It is a little bit more expensive than other hotels/ B&B’s in the area but well worth. (I managed to find a discount for my stay compared to the usual price but, now, having stayed there, I would be happy to pay the non-discounted price. It is definitely worth it.)

Booked through Booking.com. When looking on the website, other hotels also had very good reviews, were slightly lower in price, but there was always a ‘but’. Usually, relating to the noise. We stayed in a stable room which is a part of a new set of rooms built in the garden. The room and on-suite were very nice. The rooms had everything we needed: tea, coffee, kettle, biscuits, water, hairdryer, toiletries etc. Even though the railway line runs along the back of the room, the trains didn’t keep us awake at night and you could only hear them very faintly anyway.

Breakfast was lovely.  A wide variety of cold breakfast items.  A freshly cooked hot breakfast also provided, with very personal touch, attentive staff.

Eating

For dinner we bought our food from The Olive Grove http://olivegrovecanterbury.co.uk/. Really beautiful food: large portions, very healthy, filling and tasty. Staff are very kind and considerate. We didn’t eat in the restaurant but took it back to the hotel. They provided us with plastic cutlery.

We ate: vegetable soup which came with pieces of French bread, vegetable kebab whichcame with pitta bread, chips, a mixture of salads. I even requested some hot milk one night (which I drink before bed) and they gave me some in a takeaway carton!

Thank you so much for making our trip so lovely.

We also ate in the Veg Box http://thevegboxcafe.co.uk/ Really lovely food; very large portions; easily shared between two. The only problem was that it is so popular that there was no room inside to sit  so we had to sit outside and it was cold!

Exploration: Canterbury, Kent, UK – April 2015

An Overview

My most recent trip was to Canterbury. I went for 3 days in April with my mum. It was really lovely. I really liked it. Canterbury is a very lovely, pretty town. We stayed in the House of Agnes in the old city. Everything was within walking distance. It is enriched with history: I felt like I was having a 3 day history lesson!

 -          Day 1: Went by train. Charing Cross to Canterbury West.Tooka bout 2 hours.

-          Stayed at the House of Agnes. (Highly recommended. More later.)

-          Walking guided tour and Heritage Museum. 

-          Day 2: The Beany House, Glass shop, Canterbury Tales, Roman Museum, Canterbury Cathedral and Canterbury Mosque. Did some shopping

-          Day 3: River Tour, Free Mason Museum and Westgate Gardens, plus some shopping.

       Returned from Canterbury West to Victoria. 

Mainly used this website http://www.canterbury.co.uk/canterbury-district/Canterbury.aspx to plan my trip. In terms of the length of stay, three days was fine. If we had stayed one more day then it would have allowed us to space things out more and to browse the shops. Canterbury has some really nice, unique and interesting  shops. You will find artisan/boutique type shops as well as the usual high street suspects. If you have a car then can easily extend the stay without running out of things to do, for example, go to the other side of the city, explore outside the city wall or even make a trip to Leeds Castle or Howletts Wild Animal Park.