|
Bridge
Primrose Cottage is in the delightful village of Bridge, just a stone's throw from historic Canterbury. The village has 3 pubs, large convenience store, post office, chemist, health centre, dentist, restaurant, butcher, baker and hairdresser.
With excellent links onto the A2, Bridge is the perfect spot for exploring East Kent. There are also regular buses into Canterbury.
Bridge village is situated in the Nailbourne Valley in an attractive rural setting on the old Roman Watling Street, formerly the main road between London and Dover. The village is the main settlement in the Parish of Bridge and lies 2.5 miles south east of Canterbury and 12 miles from Dover.
The Red Lion and White Horse pubs both have excellent restaurants, as does Malkins Wine Bar & Bistro. All three are in the High Street, just a few minutes walk away.
The Plough and Harrow pub, also in the High Street is well known for its range of real ales.
There are plenty of places to visit nearby, including:
Howletts Wild Animal Park
The English Heritage sites of Dover Castle, Deal Castle, Walmer Castle, Richborough Castle and St Augustine's Abbey
Canterbury Cathedral
The nearby historical city of Canterbury has much to offer visitors.
Canterbury, England's most famous cathedral city of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and now a UNESCO world heritage site sits on the River Stour in one of the most attractive corners of rural Kent. It is easily reached by road, rail or sea, and has been welcoming visitors for thousands of years.
The Norman cathedral still dominates the skyline as you approach the city, giving 21st century visitors the same sense of awe as their medieval counterparts. Making a pigrimage was an important part of medieval life and pilgrim's flocked to the city to visit the shrine of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, who was murdered in his cathedral
Today Canterbury still welcomes visitors from all four corners of the globe and has, with its many ancient buildings, shops, bars and restaurants, retained both an old world charm and a cosmopolitan vitality.
The small and compact city centre is closed to traffic during the daytime to enable the narrow streets and the many attractions to be more easily and safely accessed by visitors.
A brief history of Bridge
There was probably a Roman bridge across the river (Cf. Bruges which has a similar site and name). The village is situated on the old coaching route from Dover to London, known as Watling Street. In the parish records there are detailed many marriages between passing travellers and local villagers.
Near by on the Barham Downs the armies used to assemble for campaigns abroad such as "The Field of the Cloth of Gold", the Seven Years War and also India in the mid 19th Century.
The church of St Peter, in characteristic Kentish flint, was restored in 1852. It is a feature of the village as you come down the hill from Canterbury and is even more exposed since the great storm in October, 1987. The church has two Norman doorways and in the tower and chancel are other work from the same period. The church houses two unusual sculptures, a stone figure of Macobus Kasey (1512) in his Priest's robes and a skull with a serpent coming from one of the orbits.
A characteristic of Bridge are the large manor houses near the village:
- Bridge Place was the home of the Braemes family (Sir Arnold Braemes was the first manager of the Dover Harbour Board),
- Bridge Hill House was the former home of the grandson of the French philosopher Montesquieu,
- East Bridge House,
to mention but a few. A little further away is Bourne Park where Mozart stayed once to attend the horse races on the Barham Downs!
At the top of the hill on the Bishopsbourne side of the village is Higham Park. Higham was once the home of the gentleman racing driver Count Zborowski who died in the 1923 Monza Grand Prix. The Count was immortalised by Ian Fleming in his children's story, “Chitty Chitty Bang Bag”. Mad on cars, it was said that the Count once donated a Rolls Royce fire engine to the village to make his peace after the noise of his vehicles had alarmed the horses.
There are three pubs of great antiquity, The Plough & Harrow, The Red Lion and The White Horse where a famous brawl took place which is recorded in the Church Archives of Christopher Applegate, a contemporary of Marlowe.
The Post Office is a great centre of the village and was used by Field Marshal Lord Kitchener, then living at Broome Park, to send his first despatch in 1914.
One of the first work houses in Kent was built in 1837 in Union Road and the Record Book gives the names of many inmates who, often forced by poverty, took up residence there. We are now pleased to offer you an improvement on the accommodation of 1837!
There are not many villages that can boast such varied architecture from Tudor to Victorian. The centre of village is a Designated Conservation Area.
One of the surgeons returning from the Battle of Waterloo, Dr. James wrote that "he was much impressed by the happiness and jollity of the inhabitants" of Bridge!
| All Rights Reserved... |