In and Out the Post Code I
Faversham
I've changed trains enough times at Faversham, but I've never ventured beyond the ticket barrier. A little forward research done (yes, a second hand bookshop), a little forward research not done (where is my Red Book of local towns?) and off I tootle on Wednesday, my official first day of leave.
The outside of the station is covered in scaffolding, and you have to risk life and limb to get past it, stepping into the road. I make it to the zebra crossing unscathed and make it to Preston Road, where I'm trapped behind an old lady with a trolley and it's impossible to overtake. Nothing exciting thus far; various restaurants and a couple of pubs, but beer isn't on the agenda (and it's Shepherd's Neame anyway).
I notice an old cinema first; I'm fascinated by these relics of earlier viewing habits. I wonder if the pub next door - a Weatherspoons - was once a rather grander cinema? (Although, given this, site of the Argosy, I think not). Then I hit the first bookshop - closed. It's only open on market days, I suspect. How do these people expect to sell anything if they are never open?
Left at the bottom of this road, and towards the square, or maybe better to say the town's hub. The Guildhall's several shades bluer than this picture - I wonder what led them to put this on stilts? It's not the first one I've seen like this. Floods? I guess there's shelter below the talking shop - or space for market stalls. I've already noticed there's a secondhand bookshop around here, but decide to postpone that pleasure and head down Abbey Street towards the creek that once made Faversham an important port.
Before I get there, there's Arden's House which apparently one of the only places where an authentic production of an Elizabethan play can be performed on location (or something), as this was where Thomas Arden was murdered on his wife's instructions and then immortalised in the anonymously published Arden of Faversham (Shakespeare? Marlowe? Kyd Yeah, right). It's built on the edge of the abbey, demolished in Henrician times. There are a lot of medieval houses down here, although the road is wider than I'd imagined from that period. The buildings to the left once backed onto the creek, and thus to the sea, and this is high status land. I've also gone past the Shepherd's Neame brewery by this point, without realising it.
At the end of Abbey Street, there's a cut through down to the creek, and some working dockings, as well as medieval barns, and as I star across at the cows staring back at me, I feel like I've gone back in time to a Sidney Cooper painting. The uncanny sense is fostered by the skull and crossbones hanging from a nearby warehouse, and the dragon poised on the corner of a house.
Back into the centre, and a pause for a baguette before doing a run of charity shops and the secondhand place. The latter is a little pricey - nothing I can't live without, so I depart without yielding to any temptation. A return visit is not ruled out. In the RSPCA shop - not usually noted for being interesting - I find a copy of a Neal Stephenson hardback for a pound. After picking up a couple of classical CDs and a heat mat from downstairs, I decide I will lug this monster around. Bargain. I putter about the deli, but remain untempted, and continue on down West Street, away from the centre, until I spot a sign for an Ancient Monument: a mill.
The path takes me through a modern housing estate, next to a stream which is barely streaming, and I wonder whether I've missed it. There was some sort of ruin in the stream at one point. I get to the end of the path - although there is a continuation without a sign across the road. (Actually, there was a sign - just not visible from where I was standing). The mill is a wooden building, closed, and some old workings. It turns out that this is the gunpowder mill - Chart Gunpowder Mill, from the mid 18th century - which was central to Faversham's explosives industry. I'd noted a plaque to George Trench, inventor of Tonite, on Abbey Street, and vaguely knew about this. Further research is needed, I guess. I wander back, past Stonebridge Pond and its tiny park, and down to the back of the brewery.
Back on Court Street, I notice a number of plaques with royal connections. Stephen had founded the abbey, and was buried there, but this is English Civil War and Glorious Revolution stuff. Mayor John Trowts entertained Charles II there on the latter's return to the country - they'd been in exile in Breda, and Trowts passed on money and correspondence to the deposed king. James II was captured in 1688 by fishermen from Faversham on the look out for papists off Sheerness, and took him to the Queen's Arms - which was when Richard Marsh, owner of the brewery, recognised who they'd actually captured on his way out of the country. They held him for three days whilst they worked out what to do. (Clearly one of those, "Oh shit" moments.) He was apparently persuaded to return to London - where William III had already arrived - and was then allowed to quietly escape to France.
It was time to head back, but first I popped into Tescos. Here I ran into a colleague, and we sniggered about the behaviour of another party the day before. What are the chances - I know one person in the town, and this is he. He had to head off, and so did I; I'd not got to the church (St Mary of Charity), nor seen inside the other bookshop, so a return visit is in order. But I think I need to read a little more history first.
I've changed trains enough times at Faversham, but I've never ventured beyond the ticket barrier. A little forward research done (yes, a second hand bookshop), a little forward research not done (where is my Red Book of local towns?) and off I tootle on Wednesday, my official first day of leave.
The outside of the station is covered in scaffolding, and you have to risk life and limb to get past it, stepping into the road. I make it to the zebra crossing unscathed and make it to Preston Road, where I'm trapped behind an old lady with a trolley and it's impossible to overtake. Nothing exciting thus far; various restaurants and a couple of pubs, but beer isn't on the agenda (and it's Shepherd's Neame anyway).
I notice an old cinema first; I'm fascinated by these relics of earlier viewing habits. I wonder if the pub next door - a Weatherspoons - was once a rather grander cinema? (Although, given this, site of the Argosy, I think not). Then I hit the first bookshop - closed. It's only open on market days, I suspect. How do these people expect to sell anything if they are never open?
Left at the bottom of this road, and towards the square, or maybe better to say the town's hub. The Guildhall's several shades bluer than this picture - I wonder what led them to put this on stilts? It's not the first one I've seen like this. Floods? I guess there's shelter below the talking shop - or space for market stalls. I've already noticed there's a secondhand bookshop around here, but decide to postpone that pleasure and head down Abbey Street towards the creek that once made Faversham an important port.
Before I get there, there's Arden's House which apparently one of the only places where an authentic production of an Elizabethan play can be performed on location (or something), as this was where Thomas Arden was murdered on his wife's instructions and then immortalised in the anonymously published Arden of Faversham (Shakespeare? Marlowe? Kyd Yeah, right). It's built on the edge of the abbey, demolished in Henrician times. There are a lot of medieval houses down here, although the road is wider than I'd imagined from that period. The buildings to the left once backed onto the creek, and thus to the sea, and this is high status land. I've also gone past the Shepherd's Neame brewery by this point, without realising it.
At the end of Abbey Street, there's a cut through down to the creek, and some working dockings, as well as medieval barns, and as I star across at the cows staring back at me, I feel like I've gone back in time to a Sidney Cooper painting. The uncanny sense is fostered by the skull and crossbones hanging from a nearby warehouse, and the dragon poised on the corner of a house.
Back into the centre, and a pause for a baguette before doing a run of charity shops and the secondhand place. The latter is a little pricey - nothing I can't live without, so I depart without yielding to any temptation. A return visit is not ruled out. In the RSPCA shop - not usually noted for being interesting - I find a copy of a Neal Stephenson hardback for a pound. After picking up a couple of classical CDs and a heat mat from downstairs, I decide I will lug this monster around. Bargain. I putter about the deli, but remain untempted, and continue on down West Street, away from the centre, until I spot a sign for an Ancient Monument: a mill.
The path takes me through a modern housing estate, next to a stream which is barely streaming, and I wonder whether I've missed it. There was some sort of ruin in the stream at one point. I get to the end of the path - although there is a continuation without a sign across the road. (Actually, there was a sign - just not visible from where I was standing). The mill is a wooden building, closed, and some old workings. It turns out that this is the gunpowder mill - Chart Gunpowder Mill, from the mid 18th century - which was central to Faversham's explosives industry. I'd noted a plaque to George Trench, inventor of Tonite, on Abbey Street, and vaguely knew about this. Further research is needed, I guess. I wander back, past Stonebridge Pond and its tiny park, and down to the back of the brewery.
Back on Court Street, I notice a number of plaques with royal connections. Stephen had founded the abbey, and was buried there, but this is English Civil War and Glorious Revolution stuff. Mayor John Trowts entertained Charles II there on the latter's return to the country - they'd been in exile in Breda, and Trowts passed on money and correspondence to the deposed king. James II was captured in 1688 by fishermen from Faversham on the look out for papists off Sheerness, and took him to the Queen's Arms - which was when Richard Marsh, owner of the brewery, recognised who they'd actually captured on his way out of the country. They held him for three days whilst they worked out what to do. (Clearly one of those, "Oh shit" moments.) He was apparently persuaded to return to London - where William III had already arrived - and was then allowed to quietly escape to France.
It was time to head back, but first I popped into Tescos. Here I ran into a colleague, and we sniggered about the behaviour of another party the day before. What are the chances - I know one person in the town, and this is he. He had to head off, and so did I; I'd not got to the church (St Mary of Charity), nor seen inside the other bookshop, so a return visit is in order. But I think I need to read a little more history first.