St Martin, Eynsford

Eynsford is an elongated village with a pretty bridge and ford next to each other, both overlooked by the prominent tower and shingled spire of St Martin. The road over the bridge leads to Lullingstone Roman Villa, famous for its 4th century Christian wall paintings.

The church comprises a west tower and porch, nave, north aisle, south transept, chancel and an apsed sanctuary, much altered during its life, and now very brightly whitewashed and with a modern stone floor. It dates from the late 11th or early 12th centuries, clearly seen in the elaborate 12th century west doorway, which has a rounded arch with double rows of zig-zag and spirals, which continue down the sides. A smaller and later pointed doorway is set within the earlier one. The tower itself is 13th century, as is the south transept. 

Inside, the chancel has two blank arches of similar 13th century date, indicating two long vanished north chapels, the pointed lancets within them reset following their demolition. The chancel's south wall has two Norman windows, but the chancel arch itself is 14th century. The north aisle (with cross gables) is 16th century.

After this rather complicated architectural history, the furnishings are relatively limited: there is a handsome and well preserved Perpendicular font with alternating rosettes and shields; an unusual trefoiled double piscina on shafts in the chancel, and a very jolly Coat of Arms to George III. In the porch are two mediaeval stone coffins.

Eynsford is part of the Benefice of Eynsford with Farningham & Lullingstone, and has a weekly all-age communion with choir and Sunday School, except for the first Sundays, which have an alternating joint service with Lullingstone.

St Martin, Station Rd, Eynsford DA4 0EH

St Botolph, Lullingstone

St Botolph lies in the grounds of Lullingstone Castle and found through an impressive red-brick Tudor gateway, to the side of the expansive lawn of Lullingstone Castle house. The house is largely early 18th century, but encloses a Tudor core.

The church itself in some ways echoes the house, for its current form essentially reflects the 16th and 18th centuries - but more on that, later. From the outside, it seems a typical Downland church, with flint and brick walls and a small bell-cote, the only slightly jarring feature being an early 18th century porch, classical in style, and painted brilliant white. 

But the inside is a surprise (see photograph above): what was essentially a Gothic building - all the windows are 14th century Decorated - was thoroughly restored in the early 18th century by Percyvall Hart, who also altered the adjacent house. Most obvious is the fine plasterwork, but his work also extends to the pulpit, benches, a black and white marble pavement, and the font, oddly enclosed in a tall wooden box with a pyramidal top.

Of the Tudor period, there is a fine screen, erected in the early 16th century by Sir John Peche. This was later topped by a classical balustrade, but the original detailing includes pomegranates (the symbol of Katherine of Aragon) and Peche's own symbol, an "E" on a peach, a play on his name. The Tudor - 18th century theme continues with an impressive collection of stained glass and monuments. The Tudor glass in the nave includes a George and the Dragon, and the martyrdom of St Erasmus, his entrails being wound out like wool onto a distaff.

The monuments dominate the sanctuary and north chapel: the effigy Sir John Peche himself (d. 1522) lies below a slab and surmounted by a huge arched canopy, which divides the sanctuary from the chapel. The first Sir Percyvall Hart (d. 1581) and his wife lie opposite, on the south side of the sanctuary, the monument again filling the whole wall, through the style is now Classical. The effigies Sir George Hart (d. 1587) and his wife - affectionately holding hands - lie on a tomb chest in the chapel, the corners surmounted by statutes representing Labour, Rest, Death (a particularly eerie shrouded skeleton) and Resurrection. The monument to Percyvall Hart (d. 1738) effectively comprises the west wall of the chapel, covered in arcading incorporating palm fronds. In the chancel are three good brasses, to Sir William Peche (d. 1487), Alice Baldwin (d. 1533) and Elizabeth Brooke (d. 1544).

The church proudly proclaims that it is a parish church and not a private chapel, and it is part of the joint Benefice of Eynsford with Farningham & Lullingstone. There is a weekly Sunday service with monthly communion, using the Book of Common Prayer, and a monthly Sunday School.

St Botolph, Lullingstone Castle, Lullingstone Lane, Lullingstone DA4 0JA

St Mary the Virgin, Stone (Kent)

Stone is an unlikely setting for one of Kent's most memorable churches, sandwiched as it is between the Dartford Crossing and the Bluewater shopping centre. But so locally renowned is this 13th century church - almost certainly the work of the Westminster Abbey masons - that is it known as "The Lantern of Kent".

Although a Saxon church is mentioned in Domesday, the present building dates mostly from 1250-70. The Manor belonged to the Bishop of Rochester, and it is likely that it was his influence that engaged the Westminster workshops, possibly during a lull in Henry III's rebuilding of the Abbey. Whatever the story, it resulted in the nave and chancel being built in the early Decorated Gothic style, and of a quality and richness unusual in a parish church. The 14th century saw the addition of a west tower over an additional bay of the nave, followed by the Wiltshire Chantry in 1527.

Entry is through the tower, which leads into the aisled nave. The western tower bays are later Decorated Gothic, but sympathetic in design to the earlier work. Going east, the arcades comprise there three bays of intricately moulded arches over slender clustered shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. These are flanked by aisle windows with plate tracery. Both windows and arcades  become more elaborate as one moves east, culminating in a beautiful chancel arch. Everywhere, the window label stops take the form of carved heads, among them those of Edward I and his wife, Eleanor of Castile.

The glory is the chancel. This is vaulted, with richly carved blind arcading matching that seen in the Abbey. Above this, much was renewed by George Edmund Street (1824-1881), including windows with bar tracery, faithful to the late 13th century style. He also reinstated  the vault, based on what remained after its removal in the 1640s. So impressed was Street with the quality of the original workmanship, that he refused to take a fee for the restoration.

Although the architecture is the main draw, there are faint remains of wall paintings on the north wall, including the Murder of St Thomas a Becket and two depictions of the Virgin and Child. The chancel has a superb brass to John Lumbarde (d. 1408), fully robed within a delicate octofoil cross. In the nave is the partially obscured brass to Robert Chapman (d. 1574): his wall tablet, depicting his family, is in the Chantry, along with tomb chest to Sir John Wiltshire (d. 1527).

The church has services daily (except Tuesday), including a Messy Church in the local CofE Primary school. It is normally open for visitors and private prayer on Wednesdays: I was very warmly welcomed on my visit.

St Mary the Virgin, Church Road, Stone, Greenhithe, DA9 9BE

St Augustine, Snave

Declared redundant in 1983 and now maintained by the Romney Marsh Historic Churches Trust, St Augustine's sits alongside a quiet side road off the busy A2070, with only a few houses and a farm for company. It doesn't even have a surfaced path - just a grassy lane, which in Spring is a carpet of daffodils.

The church dates from the 13th Century with a tower added early in the 15th. The interior is unusual in that the wide, aisleless nave opens eastwards through two separate arches, onto the chancel and the spacious Lady Chapel. The roof has slender crown-posts on tie-beams, clearly of an ancient date. The whitewashed interior is plain and dignified, with simple Victorian pews and clear glass. There is a fine Coat of Arms of George II, and the pulpit reuses tracery from a Perpendicular screen.

In the chancel, there is a fine 15th Century Piscina and a single Sedile with an embattled top. The Lady Chapel was, at some point, graced with an open fire grate in the corner - presumably to warm the Vicar before winter services...

St Augustine, Snave, Ivychurch TN26 2QJ

St Peter & St Paul, Appledore

St Mary, Kenardington

St Matthews, Warehorne

All Saints, Woodchurch

St Mildred, Tenterden

Holy Trinity, Queenborough

The Blessed Virgin Mary & St. Sexburgha, Minster-in-Sheppey

St James, Cooling

St Nicholas, New Romney

St Clement, Old Romnery

St George, Ivychurch

St Eanswith, Brenzett

St Peter, Newenden

St Mary Magdalene, Cobham

Canterbury Cathedral

Canterbury Cathedral needs no introduction: the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury has overseen the history of Christianity in England since St Augustine arrived here in 597AD and baptised the Ethelbert, King of Kent, and remains the "mother church" of the Anglican Communion.

Since then, it has seen the martydom of Thomas a Becket in 1107, the canonisation of whom (and subsequent development of his shrine) led to the cathedral becoming a major centre of pilgrimage - gloriously captured in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. The pilgrims' offerings also helped to finance major rebuilding, resulting in the glorious building we see today - now part of the Canterbury UNESCO World Heritage Site.

A Saxon cathedral was established here after the enthronement of August as first Archbishop of Canterbury, but of this nothing remains: a fire in 1067 resulted in the Normans rebuilding the cathedral in the Romanesque style under Bishop Lanfranc, 1070-77. The choir was soon enlarged by Prior Ernulf and, of this, the crypt (1096) survives. The choir itself was destroyed by fire in 1174. This was rebuilt 1174-1200, and demonstrates the transition from the Romansque to the newer Gothic style. Most of the remainder of the cathedral was rebuilt in the Perpendicular Gothic style, starting with the nave and transepts (1379-1405), cloisters (1397-1414), and the central tower (1493-1497).

The cathedral contains suitably opulent furnishings, most notably its stained glass: over 1,200 square metres of stained glass includes one of the largest collections of mediaeval glass in Europe. It is also the burial place of a long list of notable people, besides Becket: these include St Alphege and St Anselm, both former Archbishops; Edward, the Black Prince (1330-1376); Henry IV (1367-1413) and his wife Joan of Navarre (1370-1437); Archbishop Stephen Langton (1151-1228), one of the key figures in the development of the Magna Carta; Orlando Gibbons, organist and musician (1583-1625); and the author Somerset Maugham (1874-1965). Sadly, the magnificent shrine of Becket was destroyed at the reformation, but those of Henry IV and Edwards the Black Prince survive.

Today, the cathedral and its precinct remain a place of pilgrimage and continue to play host to a constant programme of services, musical and other events. There is a charge for entering for a tourist visit.

Canterbury Cathedral, Christ Church Gate, Canterbury, Kent, CT1 2EH

St Augustine, Brookland, Kent

Set in the flat and bleak landscape of Romney Marsh, Brookland church looks weirdly out of place. The distinctive belfry, with its three conical tiers of wooden shingles, might look more at home in the Balkans than in the Garden of England. According to legend, the belfry was originally located on the roof, but leapt from the church in surprise when an aged batchelor married an equally elderly spinster.

The adjacent church is a little more orthodox, although still interesting. The porch, with its wooden half-gates is charmingly rustic, and adjacent is a narrow, low tower with a clock. Dating from around 1250, the gothic nave is wide and spacious, and it has equally generous aisles. The scarily odd angles of the walls and arcade arches betray serious signs of subsidence, all adding to the charm (and betraying the real reason for not building the belfry on the church roof). It still retains its original box pews, some pretty 14th-century stained-glass windows, and a well preserved pre-reformation wall painting of the murder of Thomas a Becket.

The most notable furnishing is a Norman font, made of lead: reputedly stolen by a local raiding party from a church in France, it features the signs of the zodiac and pictures of rural life. Close by are other artifacts of rural life, including a set of weights and measures, an unusual portable porch (supposedly intended to keep the priest dry at funerals), and the clock mechanism, set at ground level for all to see.

But most poignant for me is the memorial erected to John and Mary Munn and ten of their children, all of whom predeceased them. It was erected by the only survivor, Henry. You can almost feel his plight.

High Street, Brookland, Romney Marsh, Kent TN29 9QR