Old Schools & Orchards of Canterbury | - Click on the image above to view gallery
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I was born and grew up in Canterbury: a relatively small cathedral city that is surrounded by some lovely countryside. Nigel and I have known each other for over 30 years but we didn’t know each other when we were both at the same primary school. The walk we have now done twice this year starts from the back of the school along some of the old footpaths we would have walked along as youngsters, going to places where we probably shouldn’t have been like the old Lime Kiln Quarry. I guess times were very different when as youngsters we probably did do things we probably shouldn’t have, but never really came to any harm.  Sweetcorn as far as we could see. It had been a very long time since either of us had walked here so we really were wondering what we would find if anything of what we could remember. The walk started along some narrow footpaths heavily planted with hedgerows where I was transported back to being about 10 again. We used to come out on “nature walks” from school and walk these very paths looking for nesting birds in the hedges along with other things to take back to the classrooms to have a closer look at. My memory took me back to where there was a huge area of allotments and smallholdings with chickens and goats. The field where all these were was now just planted with grass and not a sign of what was there in the past. There were still a few allotments in an area where my father used to have one but today they are all behind a locked gate so no chance of getting a closer look.
Next we walked past where the Lime Kiln Quarry would have been and there was no evidence whatsoever of what was once there. Nigel recalls a time when a few young lads built a raft out of scrap wood and oil drums and floated themselves out into the middle of the water in the disused quarry. They got themselves into problems when one of the oil drums floated away from the rest of the raft. I do remember vaguely passing by this quarry but I was never brave enough to go through the gates all those years ago.
Our walk continued past old buildings and our next surprise was that what use to be old apple orchards was now completely grubbed up and was arable farmland, which during the winter months being used for pasture but during our early autumn walk there was just acres and acres of sweetcorn. As far as I could tell it was already past its best, so I have no idea what that was destined for.
A little further on we passed Nigel’s secondary school. Not only was I not clever enough to go there but as it was a boys’ grammar school there was another reason I couldn’t go! A football tournament was going on in September - well amongst those boys who weren’t bored and had slipped out to play about in all those sweetcorn fields anyway! The school is next to Canterbury Rugby Club where there always seems to be something going on.
To make this a circular walk we had to cross over Canterbury bypass where all the autumnal colours were just starting to show on the roadside verges as the field maples and dogwoods were turning. Some of you may have heard of Milton drainage pipes a precast concrete pipe used extensively with building projects. What most people don’t know though is they are named Milton after the place where they were first manufactured: a small place just outside Canterbury. We found quite a few abandoned ones.
 Cathedral over the pear orchard We had to do quite a bit of road walking which was such a shame as inevitably the road was very busy with people using it as a short cut to avoid traffic elsewhere which we might well do ourselves but we I hope would give anyone walking a bit more room than some drivers did for us, The road did however lead us past some lovely orchards that looked great without any leaves, I thought. In fact I found it much easier to get a good photo of them without all the leaves on them. They did look good however heavily laden with pears and apples.
The walk continued crossing back over the bypass once more and back towards where we had parked the car. It gave us some unexpected views over Canterbury towards the cathedral which made it seem like it stands alone in the city centre whereas in fact it’s surrounded by many buildings.
Nigel had suggested doing this walk on many occasions out of curiosity of what we would find. It had been one that brought back some very vivid memories for sure and had been really interesting with all the things we found along the way.
Thanks to Rachel Bastow from the Online Fellwalking club for putting me right on what I thought was a sweetcorn crop. It is in fact Maize which she tells me looks exactly the same as sweetcorn but is used for animal fodder and isn't sweet at all. WE all learn something new everyday.
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