Busy Day in Kent

Yesterday's route card read as follows:
M20 to J9, then A28 to Tenterden.
Back to A262/A274 to Maidstone, then Rochester.
A2/M25 home.

After an early start, we made good time and were in Tenterden shortly after 9:30 for the Book Fair there. We made some reasonable purchases and were heading home by 11:00.

The route north took in the villages of Biddenden (home of the Chulkhurst twins), Headcorn and Sutton Valence before passing through a log-jammed Maidstone.

The next stop was a retail stop for craft materials at Oyster Stamps, just outside Rochester. We know Graham and Tracy quite well now and he gave me a rundown of the manufacturing process for his rubber stamps, which was quite educatonal!

Next was a stop in Rochester itself for lunch at Peggoty's Parlour in the High Street, and a very quick browse in the bookshops there. Although Baggins is the largest, I actually got some better bargains in the Oxfam shop a couple of doors away.

Finally, we headed for home, but I couldn't resist a diversion to take a look at the church in Cooling, supposed inspiration for the opening scene of Charles Dicken's Great 'Expectations'.


The last leg of the trip home involved a slight diversion via the A13 and A406, due to heavy traffic on the M11 which I thought may have caused holdups on the M25. A busy but pleasant day, and I added Tenterden, Biddenden and Cooling to my Village Signs database.

North Oxfordshire circuit

Yesterday's route card read as follows:
M40 to J12
Down to Burton Dasset, across Edgehill, then south to Hook Norton and the Rollrights.
Into Chipping Norton, then Churchill, Burford and home via A40.

An early start saw us driving through thick fog as we left London for Burton Dassett. The church at Burton Dasset, 'All Saints' is a quite remarkable building with a wonderful well outside of it, and the setting of the surrounding country park as the mist was rising was also quite magical.

The run across Edghill and down to Hook Norton was uneventful if picturesque, and the next stop was at Great Rollright church, St Andrew's. This has an interesting collection of corbel carvings on the outside of the porch. Also, there is a Green Man and Green Lady carving on the western end of the south aisle. The Green Man is extremely worn and urecognisable, but the Green Lady is quite distinct.

We then headed into Chipping Norton for an early lunch and a hunt in the bookshop, which took longer than anticipated.

Heading back to the Rollrights, I visited the stones, and saw the damage done by the recent fire there. All very sad.

Next on the list was the church at Little Rollright, which is supposed to have a standing stone near it. I didn't see the stone, but Little Rollright is a strange place. It looks as if attempts are being made to completely rebuild the village as a gated community. Roads are being relaid, there are security cameras at the (only) entrance to the village, and the whole area is being re-landscaped. The unassuming little church of St Phillip has a couple of incredible stone memorials for the Dixon family inside it.

After a brief stop to see the Cross base at Salford church, we moved on to Churchill Village to see the array of possible ancient stones there.

Satisfied that I'd seen everything I wanted to, we set off for Burford and the route home. Which left just one stop on the A361, to take a closer look at Lyneham Longbarrow, before finally headed directly for home.

Book Fair? Fair enough!

No route card yesterday, just a simple trip over to Gerrards Cross to see what bounty could be found at the monthly Book Fair held there.

It always amazes me that secondhand books are so damned expensive. A small booklet from the 60s, with a cover price of 3/6d, with an ex-library stamp, in not wonderful condition for £4.50? Total madness IMO. Speaking to a couple of sellers, they seemed united in the view that the business in general was slowing down, and suffering from libraries dumping large quantities of books onto the trade at high prices.

Two anwers to that: If you're not selling, reduce your prices! And don't accept the high prices set by libraries disposing of their books. Simple huh?

Anyway, despite all that we bought several books: a couple of Pevsners (incredible high prices considering their commonality), some AA booklets listing Ancient Sites and a biography of Mrs Beeton.

On the way home, I added a couple of village sign photographs to the collection, from Farnham Common and Farnham Royal and we took the long way home through Rickmansworth and Watford.