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Canterbury

Canterbury in July 2010: the painted heraldry of Christ Church Gate, the cathedral filling every viewfinder, and a summer when Kent felt like home turf.

Canterbury, July 2010. These are some of the oldest photos on this site, from the summer when Kent was our patch and the cathedral city was the obvious Sunday out. Everything funnels you towards the cathedral here, and we went exactly the way the crowds have gone for eight hundred years: through the gate, jaws first.

Christ Church Gate in Canterbury, an ornate Tudor gateway covered in painted heraldic shields with a green statue of Christ above the arch
Christ Church Gate, the front door to the cathedral precincts: rows of painted shields, carved angels, and a green Christ watching the queue form below.

Then you step through and the cathedral simply refuses to fit in a photograph. We tried anyway, repeatedly.

Inga and Dileep standing together on the lawn in front of Canterbury Cathedral, its tower rising behind them
The two of us, July 2010, with Canterbury Cathedral doing its best to steal the frame. It succeeded.
Dileep standing in the precincts beside the long stone flank of Canterbury Cathedral, with a blue sign pointing to the shop, exit and toilets
Nine centuries of Gothic stonework, and a cheerful blue sign for the shop, exit and toilets. England in one picture.

The same July also took us down the coast to the wartime tunnels and Roman lighthouse of Dover Castle.

A month later, half an hour down the road from here, the biggest thing on this whole site happened: the proposal at Leeds Castle. Kent was good to us.