There's a big wide world out there…..

Search This Blog

Showing posts with the label Kent

View all

Posts

Chartwell

August 09, 2025

+

0

Get link
Facebook
X
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps

High interest posts

Soi Romanee Old Phuket Town Soi Romanee is the oldest street in Phuket Town, it more of a lane way between 2 roads. I entered from the Thulong Road entrance. When Phuket had a thriving tin mining industry, Soi Romanee was home to many brothels that were patronised by the Chinese miners. Today it's a pretty little lane with many photo spots. Apparently it's regularly used for wedding photos and fashion shoots. Soi Romanee was the first street in Phuket Town to be restored, the overhead electrical wiring is all underground. The majority of the buildings have been restored and there's a niche market for people who want an old style tourist experience, with guest house accommodation in the street. The building with the balconies at night gets lit up with lights that change colour so the building itself looks purple, yellow etc. It's very pretty. Some of the buildings, such as this one, look as though they've been restored quite recently and a new us...

Chartwell

Winston Churchill's family home Chartwell, Winston and Clementine's family home can be found near the town of Westerham in Kent. Winston went to look at the house in 1921, he fell in love with the views over the Weald of Kent but the house was quite dilapidated. He came back a year later with his wife and they decided to buy the estate. It then took another 2 years to renovate the house before they could move in with their family. The property now belongs to the English National Trust, after the war Winston found himself in some financial distress and so he sold the estate to the National Trust. He retained a life time tenancy for himself and his wife, after he died in 1965 Lady Churchill decided to give up her right to the tenancy and the National Trust took possession and opened Chartwell to visitors in 1966. The National Trust has added a large visitors centre and cafe as you enter from the carpark. Get there early as Chartwell is very popular and the carpark fills up very q...

Osborne House

Queen Victoria's home on the Isle of Wight Osborne House was the main reason for me wanting to visit the Isle of Wight. It was Queen Victoria's family home and I've been interested in her and her extended family for a number of years. Well since my teen royal history phase, other teens frantically gather information on the latest teen idol, I gathered information on Queen Victoria! Victoria and Albert built up Osborne as their family home and stayed there at various times during the year, they cycled through their other properties of Windsor Castle and Balmoral. Victoria had wanted Osborne to remain in the family but her son Edward VII didn't want to keep it. To be fair to him, it was quite run down, and needed a lot of work done on it, he had Sandringham as his country home and didn't need Osborne. For a time it was a Naval College and then opened to the public. The restoration work on Osborne is ongoing and these lower terraces have only just b...