Tea and Cakes in Elham:
Sunday 16 August 2015

On the afternoon of Sunday 16 August 2015, Peter, Janet and Jemima hosted a tea and cakes get-together. The setting was the picturesque Elham Valley. A score of Members and Attenders of Canterbury Meeting, accompanied by spouses, a father and a little dog, enjoyed tea, cake and ‘good crack’. The weather was warm and intermittently sunny, so that many felt able to sit outside. One person, Robin, enjoyed the deep peacefulness of the orchard, sitting for a while on a well-sited garden bench. Some took a walk right to the bottom of the orchard, below which runs the course of the former Elham Valley railway line; the Elham Valley Way, a long-distance footpath that links Canterbury to Hythe; and the Nailbourne, a winterbourne that rises in Lyminge and runs, only intermittently in some places, through Elham, Barham, Kingston, Bishopsbourne, Bridge, Patrixbourne, Bekesbourne, Littlebourne, where it becomes known as the Little Stour, Wickhambreaux and  Ickham; and thence to its confluence with the Great Stour at Pluck’s Gutter.