On this day in 1793, a middle-aged widow wearing a simple white dress, her head shorn of her thinning grey hair, her hands bound behind her back, walked briskly up the steps to the guillotine. So eager was she to meet her fate that she accidently trod on the toes of her executioner. She apologised to him, and meekly embraced death, surrounded by hundreds of blood-thirsty Parisian onlookers.
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Buried deep in the University of Kent’s Templeman Library are two volumes from the London Historical Society Journal, published in 1910, entitled Despatches from Paris, 1784-1790, which chronical the correspondence of John Sackville, Third Duke of Dorset, the British ambassador to France at the time.
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During the Covid pandemic, I naïvely hoped that the worldwide restrictions on travel, combined with the ability to work remotely, might encourage people to reassess their need to move around the world with such frequency. Continue reading →

John Rambo and Odysseus are two war heroes trying to get back home. They are traumatised by the horrors they have witnessed on the battlefield and guilt-ridden by their failure to protect their fallen comrades.

On their long journey, they will have to fight off monsters and overcome numerous obstacles that threaten to derail their progress. And when they do finally return home, they find it much changed and unwelcoming. Continue reading →

A chronology of the 14-year campaign to build a bypass around Bridge and confront the hazards on Kent’s “death highway” (1962-76)

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In September 1802, four of the five Wordsworth siblings, Richard, William, Dorothy and John, gathered in London for a financial planning meeting. There was good news and bad news. The good news was that the inheritance from their late father, withheld by his employer Lord Lonsdale for two decades, had finally been agreed and would amount to the not inconsiderable sum of £10,388. 6s. 8d.
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Within the space of just over a year, two major buildings in the historic city of Canterbury have gone up in flames. Both structures dated from the interwar period and both had been abandoned for several years. One was a former department store, slated for redevelopment, the other, a cinema closed down during the Covid pandemic and never reopened.
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Decades of abuse scandals and patriarchal cover-ups have taken their toll on the Church of England. In an attempt at redress, on 28 January this year, the Right Reverend and Right Honourable Dame Sarah Mullally DBE was confirmed as the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury during a ceremony at St Paul’s Cathedral.
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In January 2026, I gave a talk at the Bridge and District History Society on the country estate on the edge of the village that was one of the most important cricketing venues in England during the late 18^th century, featuring the best players in the land in several landmark matches, before the establishment of Lords cricket ground in London in 1787.

At the request of those who missed it, here is a transcript and a few selected images from the presentation. I have added links to individual player profiles. Continue reading →

During the last years of her life, my mother lived in a quiet retirement community on St. Radigund’s Street in Canterbury. She had been a high school history teacher who specialised in the Tudor era but I am not sure even she was aware of the fact that, six centuries ago, her street had been the site of an abortive uprising that would eventually lead to one of the most celebrated dynastic struggles in English history.
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