A collection of quotes, extracts of poetry, novels and artwork that reference or discuss the county of Kent.

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Kent

“Kent, sir—everybody knows Kent—apples, cherries, hops, and women.”

Charles Dickens (1812–1870), The Pickwick Papers.

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Canterbury

There are of course so many quotes that can be taken from Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales that it would be foolhardy to pick a favourite. The full text can be seen with modern and middle english side-by-side at the link below.

http://www.librarius.com/cantales.htm 

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Deal

J.M.W. Turner, Illustration of Deal Harbour from The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin.

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Dover

J.M.W. Turner, Illustration of Dover Harbour from The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin.

 

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Margate

Margate

From out The Queen’s Highcliffe for weeks at a stretch
I watched how the mower evaded the vetch,
So that over the putting-course rashes were seen
Of pink and of yellow among the burnt green.

How restful to putt, when the strains of a band
Announced a thé dansant was on at The Grand,
While over the privet, comminglingly clear,
I heard lesser Co-Optimists down by the pier.

How lightly municipal, meltingly tarr’d,
Were the walks through the lawns by the Queen’s Promenade
As soft over Cliftonville languished the light
Down Harold Road, Norfolk Road, into the night.

Oh! then what a pleasure to see the ground floor
With tables for two laid as tables for four,
And bottles of sauce and Kia-Ora and squash
Awaiting their owners who’d gone up to wash -

Who had gone up to wash the ozone from their skins
The sand from their legs and the rock from their chins,
To prepare for an evening of dancing and cards
And forget the sea-breeze on the dry promenades.

From third floor and fourth floor the children looked down
Upon ribbons of light in the salt-scented town;
And drowning the trams roared the sound of the sea
As it washed in the shingle the scraps of their tea.

Beside The Queen’s Highcliffe now rank grows the vetch,
Now dark is the terrace, a storm-battered stretch;
And I think, as the fairy-lit sights I recall,
It is those we are fighting for, foremost of all.

John Betjeman (1940)

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The Wasteland, III. The Fire Sermon (extract)

‘On Margate Sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing.’

T. S. Eliot (1922)

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“…dawn clouds to the east and glorious sunsets to the west …the loveliest skies in Europe”

J.M.W. Turner (date unknown)

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J.M.W. Turner, St John’s Church, Margate (?1784)

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J.M.W. Turner, A Street in Margate, Looking Down to the Harbour (?1784)

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J.M.W. Turner, Illustration of Margate Harbour from The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin.

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Minster

J.M.W. Turner, Minster Church, Isle of Thanet (?1784)

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J.M.W. Turner, View of Minster, Isle of Thanet  (?1784)

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Ramsgate

J.M.W. Turner, Illustration of Ramsgate Harbour from The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin.

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Vincent Van Gogh, View of Royal Road, Ramsgate (?1876)

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Sheerness

J.M.W. Turner, Illustration of Sheerness Harbour from The Harbours of England, by John Ruskin.

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Westgate-on-sea

Westgate-on-sea

Hark, I hear the bells of Westgate,
I will tell you what they sigh,
Where those minarets and steeples
Prick the open Thanet sky.Happy bells of eighteen-ninety,
Bursting from your freestone tower!
Recalling laurel, shrubs and privet,
Red geraniums in flower.Feet that scamper on the asphalt
Through the Borough Council grass,
Till they hide inside the shelter
Bright with ironwork and glass,

Striving chains of ordered children
Purple by the sea-breeze made,
Striving on to prunes and suet
Past the shops on the Parade.

Some with wire around their glasses,
Some with wire across their teeth,
Writhing frames for running noses
And the drooping lip beneath.

Church of England bells of Westgate!
On this balcony I stand,
White the woodwork wriggles round me,
Clocktowers rise on either hand.

For me in my timber arbour
You have one more message yet,
“Plimsolls, plimsolls in the summer,
Oh galoshes in the wet!”

John Betjeman (1940)

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