Book #16 Faversham Through Time

Faversham Through Time by Robert Turcan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My wife and I spent an enjoyable mid-week break last week at The Sun Inn, Faversham, a town in Kent just four miles from my birthplace. Faversham Through Time is a delightful social history of this charming, medieval town. King Stephen and his wife Matilda put Faversham on the map with the construction of a massive abbey, a building larger than Rochester Cathedral and for a brief time the town was the capital of England. The abbey suffered the same fate as so many during the period of the dissolution of monasteries.

Faversham is recognised as having been the cradle of the gunpowder industry. Explosives from the town's factories were used at Trafalgar and Waterloo. Today, Faversham is famed for its brewery industry. Britain's oldest brewery, Shepherd Neame, has its headquarters here and hops are still farmed locally.

Faversham retains its old-world pace of life and communal strength. Looking at photographs in the book with comparisons taken around 100 years ago with present day, it is evident that little has changed over the last century or so. I like that. Faversham is a beautiful place and this book is an exemplary record of the town and the persons who helped to make it what it is.

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