Description

`Keith Spence shows how much as yet survives and how rich and fascinating this part of England still is. He writes sensitively and knowledgeably about buildings and architecture, and has a keen sense of the detail that gives identity to a place.' OBSERVER `It is [in] the penetration into the small and remainingly typical aspects of the two counties that Keith Spence so informatively indulges. This book is a delight for all who live in or visit this yet typical area of England.' FINANCIAL TIMES For thousands of years Kent has been on the main road to everywhere. Julius Caesar landed there in 55 BC, as did St Augustine more than six centuries later. Kings and armies, merchants and travellers, embarked from Dover; in recent times the skies above Kent witnessed the dogfights of the Battle of Britain, while the 1990s have seen Kent linked directly with the rest of Europe via the Channel Tunnel. By contrast, in earlier centuries Sussex was largely covered by impenetrable woodland, useful in medieval times for fattening pigs in the clearings or supplying wood to power the forges, but at the same time cutting it off from London and the rest of the country. It was not until the building of good roads and the arrival of the railway that Sussex lost its backwoods status. Geographically, however, the two counties belong together, and Keith Spence, who has lived in both but will admit to no preference, here weaves together their history and landscape to interpret them for the twenty-first century. Third revised edition.