Five Folkestone Walks

1 From the west along the cliff top gardens on 04 March 2017
2 From the northeast via the station on 25 March 2017
3 Along the Pent on 08 April 2017
4 The rail line to the centre on 22 April 2017
5 A walk with local school children at a date to be agreed

Start time 11.30am, finish time 1.30 / 2.00pm

Exploring the narrative
Together we will explore this underlying pattern of Folkestone through five curated walks of approximately one mile each starting at the edge of the town and ending at the ‘Urban Room’ on the Harbour Arm. During the walk the history, urban form, architecture and landscape encountered will be discussed and explained by the walk guides.

Participants in the walks will be invited to:

Collect impressions of the places passed through on the way
Record narratives and conversations
Identify small, medium and large scale changes that would improve the environment along the route
Formulate ideas and impressions regarding the sites identified by the festival organisers
Prepare a ‘mental map’ drawing recording their impressions of the walk
Download and share all photography sketched and collected material

On arrival at the urban room there will be a one-hour discussion of the results arising from each walk and a record made of all initiatives identified with a specific focus on the ideas for the identified sites.

Refreshments and informal discussion will conclude each walk.

To book your place email:[email protected]

Over countless millennia the Pent Stream and its tributaries cut through the chalk cliffs of the south coast slowly shaping the topography of the area and creating a sheltered haven for people to come down to the sea. Folkestone was founded and grew over a very long period around this fortuitous carving of geology by water. The human history of Folkestone is of people coming down to the sea from the land; along cliff top coastal paths; along roads and tracks in the farming hinterland of Kent; of more modern roads; of railways defying the topography with engineering to bring trains across the valley and down to the sea.

Folkestone is also a built narrative of boats and shipping connecting to the land with flows of goods and people back along the same tracks, roads and rail lines into the land. We might imagine evolving patterns of movement from land to shore and from shore to land whose origins provide the foundation of the town. It is a pattern of movement from edge to centre and centre to edge.