Kent Trip - Conclusions

Just a few conclusions from the trip. 

The two hotels I used weren’t cheap, but that’s partly down to where I visited. The Premier Inn was OK, no more that that, and I’d be wary of another one with The Social as the meal option other than for an odd night. The Hythe Imperial was great, one of the most comfortable hotels I’ve stopped in, and wasn’t a silly price. As a guide the Premier Inn averaged £109/night for B&B, the Imperial was £149. Both hotels were perfectly located for the planned activities so I don’t think I could have done better. 

Could I have managed without the mobility scooter? Sort of, but the visits to Chatham and Greenwich would have been very truncated and I’d have struggled with some others; I’d also have had to take the car into Hythe. Whether it goes on future holidays will depend on the state of my sciatica and likely activities while I’m away. 

The car behaved impeccably, and with a lot of traffic jams I’m really glad I bought an auto. The only issue was the puncture but, having been fortunate, that cost me about an hour and £280 for two new tyres that I’d have needed soon anyway. I deliberately bought a smaller size SUV, I’m not regretting that but a slightly larger boot would make things easier! 

Overall a great holiday to an area I’d not previously explored, thoughts are now turning to 2026 when the North East is definitely on the agenda. 

Kent Trip - Day 8, Ashford and Home

Sadly all good things must come to an end. 

Some years ago plans were announced for a major international model railway centre at Ashford. Premises were identified, layouts donated and some funding secured. Sadly it then all fell apart, money wasn’t forthcoming and then COVID hit so the project was never completed. Today I was able to visit the Phoenix that’s risen from the ashes of that project. 

As things settled down a small industrial unit on a farm was secured and the Ashford International Model Railway Education Centre was born. I was aware of this but also that it mainly opens up for prebooked groups however, on checking their website, they were open today and as it’s only a few miles off the route home I decided to visit. Currently they have several smallish layouts on show, including the three built by The Men of Kent for the 2019 TV series of The Great Model Railway Challenge, which include the winning layout. They also have a small shop and serve drinks and excellent home-made cakes!

The Series Winning Layout

N Gauge - Originally built for a book. 

I arrived a bit early but was immediately treated to some breaking news, although it’s also hit the press this week. They’ve now leased another, much larger, unit on the same site and will finally be able to display the layouts they have in store including The Gresley Beat, one of the finest layouts ever to grace the show circuit, but only for a while as it was too large and too expensive (it needed 4 7.5t vans just to transport it) for regular showing. I was given a brief tour of the new facility which was supposed to be open for August but issues over a fire break wall (it was used as a hay barn and the wall separating it from the tractor shed was just plain block) have delayed things to October. One other thing they’ve been building is a 5” gauge miniature railway, it’s still a work in progress but they were running today. 

I’ve signed up for their email list though and we’ll definitely be back. I have to say it was also busy with visitors, whether for the refreshments or the layouts didn’t really matter. 

I’d like to say the journey home went smoothly, but it didn’t. Sheer weight of traffic caused significant delays at the Dartford Crossing then there was a long, and largely unnecessary, 40mph stretch on the M11 where I was nearly taken out by a VW that sped off a slip road just missing me then had to stand on the brakes to avoid running into the back of a van. 

Kent Trip -Day 7, Hornby

I hadn’t planned anything for today and was contemplating just having another mooch around Hythe but the forecast for a very warm day made me think of looking for somewhere indoors!

One of the places I had considered for the trip, but that didn’t really fit into the plans, was a visit to The Wonder Works, the Hornby Group’s exhibition and shop. Having checked on the map I found it wasn’t too far from Hythe and the thought of sitting in the car with the air con on was quite appealing so that decided it! It did mean I could also have a lazy start as I didn’t need to leave the hotel very early. 

It was interesting, and the exhibition side is well laid out with sections for each of their main brands (Hornby, Airfix, Scalextric, Corgi) giving the history, how it’s made, etc. There’s some hands on stuff as well for the kids to play with - it was well worth the entry fee (of £2.50 as a concession). What I hadn’t expected to see there was a Banksy artwork! 

Valentine’s Day Mascara

It was painted/installed in Margate in 2023 and is now displayed securely in the visitor centre cafe. After coffee and cake, and dodging road closures, I fulfilled another totally trivial wish, to photograph the Ham Sandwich Sign. 

It could do with a clean!

The sign wouldn’t have been too far off my route anyway but I probably drove an extra 3 miles only to find that the road closure was beyond the sign from where I started. 

Having got back to the hotel I did go for the mooch round the town, mainly to get lunch. I’d noticed an antiques emporium that was open Friday and Saturday so thought I’d have a look round; one of the stalls was selling model railway bits so I investigated, and bought a picture! She had 4 large framed photographs of derelict engines at Woodham Brothers scrapyard in Barry, the source of many of today’s restored engines*, at £5 each. After a good look and consider I picked one as I’ve been planning to change the pictures at home, then had to cart it back to the hotel - I managed with it wedged between my feet and holding on with one hand while driving with the other. 

For my last night I’d booked a table in the hotel restaurant, the Belly Pork was lovely and the selection of Kent and Sussex cheeses were excellent (and just the right quantity). Tomorrow it’s back home but I’ve got one stop planned. 

*Many (but contrary to some claims not all by any means) steam locos were sent to Barry for scrapping. They also had a contract for disposing of freight wagons and brake vans which were far easier and more lucrative to deal with so engines were left to rot. Over time a number of them** were secured for restoration and are running today, including 76017, the Class 4 that hauled us on the Kent & East Sussex a few days ago. Approximately 50% of the preserved BR locos today were saved from Barry. 

**213 were saved but not all restored, some were used as parts donors and others were never completed. 

Kent Trip - Day 6, A Little Railway

Today I ticked off a railway I’ve long wanted to visit, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch. 

It’s one of those railways that’s difficult to categorise, at 15” gauge it falls on the boundary between miniature and narrow gauge and although it’s very nearly 100 years old it’s always been a tourist line. I’d opt for it being a Miniature Tourist Railway, partly because the locos are all scale replicas rather than built to a gauge. 

From the hotel I ran along the seafront then back through the main street as I had a little bit of shopping to do. The sea front is slightly odd as it’s not really touristy, it’s just a beach and a road with houses and flats. 

The working end of the beach. 

From the town I cut back down to the Royal Military Canal which, along with the adjacent Royal Military Road, formed a major defensive line covering around 28 miles off vulnerable coastline bordering Romney Marsh. It was completed in 1809 and was dug by hand with the spoil being used to build a parapet on the landward side. Today you can boat on parts of it and there’s a long distance path running the full length. 

One of the bridges over the canal. 

By the time I’d reached the Railway I’d just missed a train, which didn’t matter, it gave me time to sort the ticket out and have a coffee. I was assured it was going to be quiet and the scooter wouldn’t be a problem, in the end it was a lot busier than anticipated but we managed!

Sir Winston Churchill

 It’s very much a railway in two parts, The run from Hythe to New Romney (the original railway) and on to Romney Sands is flat fields interspersed with villages and small towns, then you come out onto Dungeness where it’s shingle; the view from there is dominated by the power station (it’s just as bad sailing round the coast there - you can see the blooming thing for hours!) You get the feeling the trains are going much faster than they are, but that might be down to size and the fact you are only a few inches above the track bed (and can leave the sliding doors open). 

My original plan had been to alight at Dungeness but I decided to stay on the train back to New Romney instead. A group of volunteers were giving the station a good clean up, one of them lost track of time when her phone connected to a French service and the clock was an hour out! New Romney is the railway’s main base so I had a look round and some lunch. They do have a model railway display but it’s upstairs and I couldn’t be bothered. 

The train back to Hythe was almost full but with a bit of juggling we managed to get the scooter and me into one of the wheelchair compartments (along with a couple of baby buggies). I decided to scoot back through the town and then made a bit of an error, I assumed there’d be a road down to the beach from the one I was on, there was but a lot further on than I’d thought! Once I was able to cut down a lane and across the canal it was a warm run for the mile or so back to the hotel. If there’d been any shade I’d have grabbed an ice cream from the van parked opposite the hotel but instead I dropped the scooter back to the car and had a pint of cold cider. 

Kent Trip - Day 5, Big Railways

Today I moved base from Gravesend to Hythe via the Kent and East Sussex Railway. 

After breakfast, where the lady serving asked if I’d enjoyed Greenwich, I finished packing and headed southwards to Tenterden, the K&ESR was only part of the reason for the visit as will be explained. For a change there were no traffic problems at all so I arrived at the railway in plenty of time for the first train. The loco for the day was the ubiquitous BR Standard Class 4 Mixed Traffic, the only unusual thing (for anoraks) was that it’s marked 4P and 4F separately on the cab sides, not 4MT (I don’t have a clue what BR practice was). 

76017 - On loan from the Mid Hants Railway for the season.

Kent is a pretty enough county but there’s no real drama to the scenery from the railway, just flattish fields and drainage ditches. The only exceptional sight is Bodiam Castle. 

I’m not sure why but we had a bit of a delay on the return trip while they watered up the engine so we were about 15 minutes late back. I wasn’t at my best so the first thing I did was nip down to the car and fetch the scooter to make looking around easier. There’s a bit to see at the station with a reasonable gift shop, a decent tea room and even a model railway room (although the main exhibit is more a toy railway for kids rather than a a model). The tea room provided lunch (Egg Mayo and Ham Hock sandwiches) then I wandered over the crossing to the Colonel Stephens Railway Museum. 

Stephens holds a unique place in railway history as an engineer, advocate and promoter of light railways of various gauges. He held varies resident or chief engineer positions over the years, including for the Ffestiniog and Welsh Highland railways at a time when rising competition and outdated working practices nearly put them out of business - had Stephens not managed to keep them open and promote tourism they may not exist today. 

Typical railway museum display!

He was a big fan of using technology to benefit the railways including trying to develop a compression ignition diesel engined railcar many years before such a thing was actually introduce; the internal combustion engine technology in the very early 1900s simply wasn’t sufficiently advanced so steam continued to prevail. He did eventually manage to procure some petrol engine Ford truck chassis which were converted into railcars, being single ended they would run in pairs back-to-back and were quite successful. 

They’ve even squeezed a loco in. 

I did make one purchase from the gift shop but that’ll be a story for another time and place! The drive from there to Hythe was mainly B Roads so a bit twisty-turny, after a pint of decent cider I checked in and I’m now on the 4th Floor of the Imperial Hotel. It’s a bit better than a Premier Inn, and actually not that much more expensive, they even phoned me earlier to check if I wanted a dinner booking for the restaurant (I declined and had a bar meal). 

My room is at the back, on the 4th floor in the old servants quarters!

Kent Trip - Day 4, More Things Maritime

It was back to Greenwich today for more ships and things at the National Maritime Museum. 

The drive in to Greenwich was much better than yesterday, although still slow at the end, so I arrived at just about the right time. The first order of the day was to visit the Cutty Sark, the famous Tea Clipper, labelled as the fastest ship in its day. The reality is slightly more prosaic, sailing clippers were already being overtaken by steam ships by the time she was built, the official opening of the Suez Canal, five days before she was launched, heralded the final end as it shortened and eased the journey considerably but wasn’t suitable for sailing vessels, 10 years later Cutty Sark became a wool clipper. 

I’m not convinced by the style of building around the ship. 

Getting around the ship by scooter was OK, there are lifts to all levels, aided by the attendant staff, but I did park up and walk a few times. I had an interesting chat with a volunteer guide, an ex merchant seaman, as well. 

Not the view the crew would have seen!

A Cutty Sark is a short Scottish nightdress, named in the poem Tam O’Shanter by Robert Burns where farmer Tam is chased by a witch, Nannie, who is clad only in a Cutty Sark. The ship’s figurehead is of Nannie, the original is long gone but a later one is displayed in the base of the dry dock. Unusually for such artefacts you are invited to touch it, albeit carefully. 

The 1954 figure of Nannie.

After a cup of coffee I got the lift back up to street level and had a mooch around before scooting back up to the Maritime Museum to complete my wander from yesterday. It was a bit of a game of dodge the groups of school children (it’s OK, I didn’t run any of them over); I guess that’s a hazard of visiting midweek in term time. Now I’m sure anyone who reads the newspaper letter columns or comment sections will be well aware that kids today have no manners and are hooligans - I’m not saying the ones I met today were necessarily a representative sample but almost without fail they were polite and made a point of waiting or moving so I could pass by. If their mates didn’t notice me they quickly got a tap or a tug on the arm to alert them, definitely a credit to themselves and their schools and families. Not that it matters but for the record I’d guess they were mainly London schools with a majority of the kids having Asian heritage. 

I had a baguette (Ham and Emmental, plenty of filling) and a coffee in the smaller cafe adjacent to the Oceans Map; while I was eating a group of ladies assembled and started some form of dance that I could quite get the gist of. 

There seemed to be random wafting!

With so many school groups around, at one point a traffic jam developed as two lots passed in opposite directions, the noise was getting a bit wearing so having seen what I wanted to see I left the Museum. I hadn’t particularly intended to visit the Queen’s House but I had plenty of time so did, I had to backtrack through the Museum again as the lift down to the entrance level wasn’t working. 

Queen’s House

The House is primarily used to display artworks both from the permanent collection and on loan. The most famous work is the so-called Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I, an appropriate location as it’s on the site of Greenwich Palace where she was born. Getting around on the scooter was “interesting”, in particular the lift was far from ideal with restricted space to access it (I finally figured that reversing in worked best but the doors kept trying to close), but that’s my only criticism. 

This is my last night in the Premier Inn, it’s been a useful base but not ideal. There’s a public park right by the hotel and it’s been noisy at times, both during the day and later into the evening and the food offering is very restricted - 6 main course offerings, two of which are chicken curries, plus pizza. There used to be a pub adjacent but it clearly closed down a while ago so they’ve converted a room into what they call The Social which to me implies somewhere you’d go for a pleasant chat and a beer but in practice it isn’t that great - there’s a limited range of bottled drinks and a few basic menu items in a small cafe environment. As is often the way there are a number of people in who’re working away from home all week and I feel sorry for them only having such a small choice every night (I know from past experience you rarely feel like going anywhere and often expenses only cover meals in the hotel). 

Tomorrow I shall be off to the seaside in Hythe, via another railway. 

Kent Trip - Day 3, Time and Place

Today I fulfilled a bucket list visit, with a trip to the Roysl Observatory in Greenwich. 

It was raining fairly heavily almost until I left the hotel but had just about dried up, unfortunately the road conditions were atrocious, a broken down truck combined with the general traffic nearly doubled the journey time from Gravesend. I’d booked car parking a while ago but it’s at the  bottom of the hill near the Maritime Museum - thank goodness for the scooter!

Looking up to the Observatory

The first hiccup of the day was that the lift at Flamsteed House, where many of the displays are, is broken, actually in the end that only gets you onto the ground floor and it was so busy the scooter would have been a nuisance. A pleasant young lady pointed me to the buggy park which has a nice convenient iron railing to chain the scooter to (and has a canopy so if it did rain again it wouldn’t have mattered) and I was happy then to wander round. 

Inevitably there were a lot of school and tour groups so at times I had to pick my moment to see things, I wasn’t too bothered about the displays on the families of the Astronomers Royal, what I was really there for was to see information on the Longitude Problem - see below. 

H1 - Harrison’s first attempt at a timepiece to solve the z Longitude Problem.


H4 - The first marine chronometer. 


A marine chronometer from the Portuguese merchant ship the Ferreira, now better known as the Cutty Sark. 

Greenwich is inextricably linked with time, although the global standard is no longer Greenwich Mean Time, and there were several displays about how ti me was transmitted around the country, including by electric telegraph and later by radio waves from near Rugby. 

A Regulator Clock and two electrically driven slaves. 

As things had quietened down a little when I went back outside outside I went and took the obligatory photo on the Meridian line then unchained the scooter and headed through the shop to the exit, only then realising I’d missed part of the overall tour. 

Right foot in the West, left foot in the East. 

It was definitely coffee and cake time though so I headed down to the cafe first then went back in to the observatory area and chained things up again. The main thing I’d missed was the large Meridian Telescope - had I realised the exit from this involved a two storey iron grate spiral staircase I might have been less enthusiastic about seeing it, my irrational fear of heights kicked in but I coped. 

The London skyline from the observatory. 

With the observatory ticked off the list, and with time to spare, I scooted back down the hill to the Maritime Museum to make a start on looking round there (I’ll be back tomorrow). I got round a few of the exhibitions, it’s a little disjointed, and had some lunch before deciding I was tiring and heading back to the hotel - a much quicker drive than in the morning. 

This 1930s speedboat is exquisite. 




This stained glass was in the Baltic Exchange in London, one of the main clearing houses for information and contracts in merchant shipping. 

The Longitude Problem

I’ve simplified this considerably (I’ve got whole books on the subject) and I think I’ve got the details correct!

It was relatively easy for sailors to work out their Latitude (how far North or South they were) but Longitude (East or West) is difficult. Prizes of up to 20,000 pounds (several million today) were offered by the British Government for solutions to the problem, ignoring the more outlandish ideas there were two main solutions. 

Common to both methods was measuring angles in the sky; this needs some form of accurate instrument. Eventually the earlier land based telescopes and quadrants (a quarter of a circle) developed into hand-held octants and then into the sextant (a sixth of a circle). This latter has a small telescope and a system of mirrors that superimpose the images of the two objects you’re measuring. You simply move one of the mirrors in an arc and when the objects are aligned you can read off the angle. I have the Brother‘s relatively cheap sextant at home, I did mean to bring it with me as I need a decent horizon to adjust it and I’ll be by the sea later in the week. 

The first method, typically favoured by astronomers, involved charting the position of the moon relative to the stars; to do this you needed good visibility and knowledge of the heavens to take accurate measurements, some complex mathematics and extensive tables, and you had to do this on a moving ship! There were ways of doing this on land* but not at sea. 

The second method required very accurate time keeping, but was relatively simple. The easiest way to find your position involved a noon sun-shot, measuring the angle between the horizon and the sun at its highest point (the local noon) and noting the exact time (at a known place) that this occurred. With a bit of calculation, and some nautical tables, the angle gives you your latitude and the time gives you your longitude. For example if your local noon is at 13:00 Greenwich time you know you are 1 hour to the West so 360 degrees divided by 24 which is exactly 15 degrees west of the Greenwich Meridian. The biggest problem is knowing the time at your fixed place though - in the early 1700s the most accurate clocks available used pendulums but these need a stable platform, put them on a ship at sea and they’re next to useless. 

It took a Yorkshire carpenter turned clock maker, John Harrison, 4 attempts over many years to finally produce a reliable and practical Marine Chronometer. He was eventually awarded over £23,000 from the prize funds after petitioning King for the final payment. For 300 years, from the late 1700s, a sextant and chronometer were the main tools for navigating at sea, and in the air, when you couldn’t see land until the development of electronic aids including GPS. 

*The Mason Dixon Line in the US was surveyed in the 1760s by Charles Mason, an astronomer from the West Country, and Jeremiah Dixon, a surveyor from County Durham who learnt his trade in his father’s pits, using astronomical techniques.