Friday 29 June Prospect Tower

Andrew had booked our 14th Landmark Trust holiday for my birthday weekend, this one is Prospect Tower. It’s a lovely Gothic tower which is a folly in the grounds of Belmont House near Faversham in Kent. We set off at 9.45am and reached Canterbury in time for lunch at Café de Amigos, our favourite Mexican restaurant, where we ate delectable lamb fajitas. We went for a stroll around Canterbury afterwards, stopping at the Steamer cook shop in the hopes of buying some slate placemats. No such luck, but bought new kitchen scales, a knife sharpener and four bullet shot glasses like the two we already have. In Fenwick’s we found a lovely retro halter neck dress in purple, pink and orange silk, that Andrew bought me for my birthday. We shopped for food then set off back to the car, unfortunately too late to avoid a torrential downpour. It has been persisting down for about five weeks now, I’ve never known such consistently awful weather in June. We drove out to the tower, which is an ace of clubs shape with wonderful Gothic stained glass windows. It is the smallest Landmark we have stayed in, and possibly the smallest building they own. There are two steps up as you enter the tower, you have to shut the door while standing on the top step, then three steps down straight into the bedroom. The “top” of the club shape is the weeny shower room cum loo. Up twenty nine steps to the sitting room area which has the tiniest kitchen directly above the bathroom. Only one of us can stand in it, so will be taking turns to cook and make drinks. Up a further thirty one steps brings you out on the roof, which has been decked, and has magnificent views over the tree tops and all the way out to sea. When it is clear you can see the wind turbines at Whitstable. I unpacked and we sat up on the roof for a while, then went for a walk, in the garden beside the tower was a little dog cemetery, dating from 1911 back. Nearby there is a cricket field and pavilion, this has been recently restored, they had the first match on 27th May this year. The 4th Lord Harris of Belmont House had the original Belmont cricket field made, he played cricket for Kent and is apparently known as the father of English cricket. In 1878 he captained the England team and took them to Australia for a test match that instigated the Ashes test series. £6000 towards the restoration fund was raised by buying a 25 year old tractor in Douglas, Scotland and driving it the 550 miles down to Kent. We went back to the tower and Andrew cooked dinner while I relaxed with some wine and music, then we went back up to the roof to watch the sun setting over the downs.