St. John The Evangelist Church, Ickham, Nr Canterbury

Ickham is a beautiful Kentish Village which lies between Canterbury and Sandwich. The photos of the Church and Village Green were taken on two occasions, I only had a few minutes to spare on my first visit, so I made a point of going back and exploring this beautiful little church at my leisure.

The Church is situated behind the Village Green, one side of which is bordered by the thatched buildings shown in the photo above. This is another example of the beautiful country churches that we are lucky enough to have in this part of the country.

The wire gate in front of the main door is to stop birds from getting into the church.

The wonderful ancient door leading into the Church.

There has been a Church on this site since 781, with many changes to the building over the Centuries, as is usual with any building of this age.

The bell tower

The sundial dated 1741, which was re-mounted in its present position in 1977.

The Church from the Churchyard.

The beautiful interior of the Church looking towards the Early English Chancel. The Chancel does not line up with the main body of the Church, this is known as a weeping Chancel.

Looking up into the Bell Tower.

This wonderful old Chest was used to store the vestments of the priest, and dates from the 14th Century.

The beautiful Font.

There are some beautiful examples of stained glass throughout the Church, stained glass windows are not always easy to photograph, below are just some of the windows in the Church.

   

    

I was also fascinated by the beautiful carved ends of the pews, although they are probably fairly recent additions to the church, maybe Victorian, they are well worth a mention, each one is different and adds to the beauty of this lovely little Church.

    

    

   

The Church backs on to open countryside, and is surrounded by a pretty churchyard, with mature shrubs and trees. The horse chestnut trees were in bloom when I was there, I have never realized how beautiful these blooms are.

The lovely view across the open fields behind the church.

An interesting gravestone in the Churchyard.

Beautiful horse chestnut flowers .

Swans and Cygnets

As promised in my last blog here are the photos of the swans who live in Russell Gardens and Kearsney Abbey. I love swans and was lucky enough on my first visit to the gardens to see a pair of swans doing the preliminaries of their mating dance. It was so beautiful to watch, and the swans were just oblivious to all the people around them. Surprisingly the people weren’t watching the swans either!

There are two swans in the photo above, they were dipping their heads in perfect synchronization.

It was so beautiful to watch the Swan ‘dance’

After watching these swans for quite a while I went over to the area known as Bushy Ruff, this swan was on his own and obviously did not have a mate this year.

The following photos were taken about a month later than those above, the swans are now proud parents to five cygnets. Again it was lovely to see the little family enjoying the sun in Russell Gardens.

The clutch of cygnets, I would rather call them a ‘cuddle’ of cygnets!!

A beautiful little family.

Below are a few photos of another pair of swans, this time on the Kearsney Abbey lake, they only had one cygnet, but this one was only a day old. So lovely to see all the swans and their families

Cygnets are just so cute.

A very proud Dad, making quite a splash

Kearsney Abbey and Russell Gardens, Dover, Kent

This blog and the one to follow is made up of photos taken on two visits to Kearsney Abbey and Russell Gardens, the first visit was just after Easter and the second visit four weeks later in May. I have decided to join the two visits together to show the changes in just one month.

Lovely to see families enjoying this beautiful place.

    

Ducklings, photos taken a month apart

Spring daffodils.

   

So calm by the water in the first photo, and lovely Flag Irises in the second photo.

A beautiful goose resting in the shade.

I wonder where this doorway led to?

Blossom

      

The lake in Russell Gardens.

Moorhen chicks, Russell Gardens

This tree has been growing at this angle for a long time.

The next blog will be of the swans, again two visits, some lovely photos to come if you like swans