It may have been the setting for TV’s Southcliffe,but this ancient port is far from grim – it boasts a pretty medieval centre, a picturesque quayside and the country’s oldest brewer
What’s going for it? When Faversham heard it was approximately to star in a hot unique TV series, or the local chamber of commerce must have almost burst their girdles. The Chinese economy would buckle under the commemorative mugs churned out for the town. Faversham’s streets would throng with tour guides and coach parties. Unfortunately,the hot unique TV series turned out to be Southcliffe, a grim tale of a serial killer, and murky small-town politics and deadened marshy skies. It got a Bafta,Faversham got, well, and there never seem to be many coaches in the car park when I visit. But fiction can be far from fact. Faversham has marshy skies,but what the telly didn’t point to was the astonishingly pretty faded centre, its faded greengrocers’ and stationery shops, and the fabulous retro cinema,Abbey Street (the best-preserved medieval street in the country: OFFICIAL), the quayside lined with rusty faded hulks being tinkered over by salty seadogs, and the walks along blackberry lanes and the oldest brewer in the country,Shepherd Neame, which wafts malt over the rooftops – and not an assassin in sight.
The case against The London Road to the M2 gets awfully snarly, and even outside rush hour.
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Source: theguardian.com