Day out to Chilham

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Mark took a day off on 5 October. We decided to visit Chilham, Kent, which I visited a couple years ago.



We took the high speed train from St Pancras Station and transferred to the southeast train at Ashford International Station. Mark found the high speed train very efficient and comfortable.



I remembered the way to access the village from Chilham station. After reaching the entrance of Chilham village, I showed Mark the Woolpack Inn which used to be the village Coaching Inn and the old stables on the opposite side. We walked up on the street and saw several Tudor timber framed houses, e.g. Cumberland House, Clifton Cottage, some of which were used as butchers till the 1960s.



We arrived at the Square surrounded by a number of medieval houses, and Chilham Castle. Mark agreed Chilham village is a picturesque English village similar to Lacock, Wilshire, and the village has been used as the setting of a film recently. We were fortunate to see the gate for Chilham Castle opening, which was remotely operated by one of the residents who was driving through the castle’s property, and it gave me the opportunities to take photos of the mansion without having the gate in the way.



We decided to have lunch at Shelly’s tea room and had cream tea. We were given a big tea pot, a big volume of freshly baked scones, clotted cream, and jam. We couldn’t eat them all in the lunch time, but the casher kindly offered a bag for us to take away.



We looked round the Church of St Mary. The wedding ceremony was due to start at 2 o’clock. I found the greeting messages of “Welcome” in several different languages including Japanese. As for the Japanese one, it seemed to have been given the wrong word, as it said “Oideyasu”, which should be “Youkoso”, which is more standard greeting word in Japanese. We were given the time to stroll through the inside. Beautiful flowers were decorated along the edges of the pews. We saw some historic monuments, e.g. school table, the marble memorial to James Wildman. I took Mark to the background of the church and showed him the old vicarage, which has features of Georgian architecture.



We popped in the Gift shop, which is in the centre of Chilham. A group of tourists were browsing in the shop and admiring various types of English souvenirs in the shop.



We continued strolling through the village walking past village school, Elephant House, and Hambrook House, etc.



We managed to find the access point for the woodland walk behind the railway station. We followed the trail along the lake and woodland and saw just a few people who were camping to do fishing. There were several swans swimming in the lake.



Afterwards, we walked back on the trail and popped in Bagham Barn Antique Centre. We flicked though several railway, history and antiquarian books and strolled through antique furniture shops. There were loads of valuable oak, maple, and mahogany furniture, various paintings, and miscellaneous collections of china and ornaments.



As we needed to go to the toilet before catching the train, we went back to the village. I found another interesting walk around King’s Wood, which was accessible from the Car Park.



We thoroughly enjoyed the visit to Chilham on 5 October.

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