This blog is dedicated to the wonderful town of Tunbridge Wells
17-12-2010
things we miss in tunbridge wells
Untill now we posted lots of positive items about our beloved town. Nevertheless we miss some things that used to be part of the town... First of all i want to mention "A day at the Wells". Back in the ninetees, when i first visited Tunbridge Wells for a couple of times, there was this lovely museum "A day at the Wells". It used to be where nowadays you can now find The Corn Exchange shops and tearoom. I told my wife about this exhibition and Beau Nash but unfortunately it was gone by the time we re-discovered Tunbridge Wells. After asking around a bit, i was told that the town council just got rid of it. What a shame! I tried google to find some pictures on the exhibition but that didn't give many results... If anyone has pictures or footage about "A day at the Wells", please feel free to contact us through this blog.
Two others things we miss are Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Pizza Hut who both used to be at Mount Pleasant Road. In January 2009 GBK was still there and we enjoyed every bit of it. On our next trip in April 2009 it was already gone. Same story with Pizza Hut. In july 2009 it was still there, in november 2009 it was gone as well.
It's a bit sad that these restaurants have dissapeared as it's not always easy to find a place to eat with 3 children...
This blog wouldn't be complete without a word about Manor Court Farm. Manor Court Farm is a B&B and campsite on a lovely farm in Ashurst near Tunbridge Wells where we feel "at home". When we're in Tunbridge Wells, we always stay over at this wonderful venue. The farm is owned by Julia and the landlady is Sarah. Sarah is a very warm and friendly person who serves the best breakfast in the area. She became a real friend of ours. The rooms at Manor Court Farm B&B are spacious and very clean and really good value for money. Manor Court Farm lies in a beautiful countryside and is very suitable for families with children. At the farm you can find chickens, rabbits, turkeys, birds, guinnea pigs and sheep. On the farm, you can also find Holly, an extremely friendly black labrador retriever, Kitty the farmcat and Logan, the trainee-farmcat. Sarah even allowed us to adopt one of her rabbits for our children, truffle.
as we said before, Tunbridge Wells is a wonderful place to visit and probably a great place to live as well. but during our holidays we got to know some other nice places too. first of all there is Crowborough. what we like about Crowborough? well, there is the Crowborough Social Club which includes the Crowborough Petanque Club. they've got a marvellous venue with lots of very nice "pistes". As petanque is a hobby for us too, we had a really good time last summer at the club and we got to know two very nice gentlemen, Tim Andrews and his mate Tom. We sure will be visiting them again and we will sure keep in touch with them!
last summer we visited Penshurst Place and Gardens in Penshurst. we had a lovely day out and the 5 of us saw the most beautiful things. whenever you're in the Tunbridge Wells area, Penshurst Place and Gardens is surely a must-do.
the ragged trousers - the best pub you can imagine
On the Pantiles at n° 44 you can find the outstanding pub The Ragged Trousers. First of all, our compliments to the staff and the chef in the basement The drinks they serve are top of the range and the food the chef prepares is truly delicious. The chef 's dishes are most of the time very original. He puts unusual flavours together and serves you a superb meal. What's important too is that you get very good value for money. The portions are large and prices are very reasonable.
And then there is the staff... Words cannot describe how wonderful they are. The moment we pop into the pub, our son Andrew's half pint of milk is already being served Unfortunately we don't know the names of everyone who works at the pub but i must say they're all angels. A special mention allthough for Poppie, one of the waitresses, who is very keen on our little Andrew and the feelings are similar. Every time they see eachother, they get really emotional in a pleasant way At home there's even a picture from Andrew and his Poppie above his bed.
So guys, keep the good work going and you can be sure we'll be customers for many more years to come.
Tunbridge Wells is a real shoppers' delight At Royal Victoria Place on the first floor you find my wife Cindy's and our daughter Amy's number 1: Jane Norman Our youngest daughter Sara prefers H&M on the same floor... Our son Andrew and myself prefer Sports Direct on the second floor, as we're tottaly into football. Of course there are lots of other nice shops at RVP but the ones i mentioned above are our absolute favourites. A nother great thing about RVP is the Food Court on the ground floor, you can eat whatever you want from different food providers and sit together anyway. We don't know such things in Belgium...
Sometimes i don't find the football shirt i'm looking for at Sports Direct but then there's still Christopher Hull (Intersport) on Mount Pleasant Road who helps me out. A bit more expensive than Sports Direct but good quality staff
For all our favourite food and drinks to take along to Belgium or just to use at our B&B, we go to Sainsburys. They offer everything we like, almost 24/7 the whole year. Every credit to them!
Here's a little story about how we got in touch with the TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. As i'm totally into english football, in the beginning of 2009, i started searching on the internet to look if my favourite town didn't have a football club. I found out there was indeed the TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. As a collector of football shirts, i got in touch with Dave Knell, the clubshop manager of theTUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB. He was so kind to send me a shirt of the team for my collection, which i very much appreciated. We kept in touch and in april 2009 we first visited a game of the club from the town we love the most. We got to know several committee members and local fans and they made us feel really welcome. From that day on we became fans! Since then, whenever there's a home game on when we're in Tunbridge Wells, we go and support the team. We still feel very welcome every time we are at the club, we always have a really good time and we are able to see some good football. The TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB plays in the Kent Premier Division and is a really descent team with some real quality players. The team performs at a high level under it's current manager Martin Larkin.
The committee of the club is formed by Norman Sales (president), Joe Croker (chairman and treasurer), Phill Allcorn (secretary), Darrell Cousins (clubhouse manager and vice chairman), Dave Knell (clubshop manager and programme), Wynette Allcorn (hospitality/safety), Heather Milton (welfare and child protection) and John Milton (supporters rep.)
You can contact the club at: TUNBRIDGE WELLS FOOTBALL CLUB ltd. Culverden Stadium, Culverden Down, Tunbridge Wells TN4 9SG 01892520517 www.tunbridgewellsfc.co.uk
For us is this the beating heart of Kentish football and we'll be supporting the club for many more years !!!
we were also on BBC radio Kent on november 30 this year at about 6.30 am for a live interview and we were on BBC South East Today on november 29 with a very nice TV performance. Mr Charlie Rose from the BBC kindly came over to Belgium to do a report on us as regular Tunbridge Wells visitors. It was most entertaining and BBC South East gave us about 4 minutes airtime . I must say Mr Rose is a real nice gentlemen and i sure hope he enjoyed his short stay here with us.
here's a little story about how our "tunbridge wells love affair" started off...
back in the ninetees, when i was still a student, some former classmates of me and myself, visited the town of Tunbridge Wells. our visit back then was according to a first working experience project from school. we were so keen on the town we visited Tunbridge Wells 4 times in 2 years time (seems like the love affair already started in those days )
years went by and i got myself a job and a fabulous wife... meanwhile, we got 3 wonderful children...
as we were always in some way connected and attracted by the beauty of England, at a certain moment i started telling stories to my wife about Tunbridge Wells. of course she was very curious about all the nice things i told her about the spa town. at the beginning of january 2009 we decided to give it a go, booked ourselves a ferry and off we were... the first place where we stayed over was Hawkenbury Farm. this is a really nice B&B but unfortunately not really suitable for children... nevertheless we had a very nice time and i re-discovered all the towns' delights. my wife and children immediately were very attracted to Tunbridge Wells as well, this came in rather handy
after that first weekend we were ready for much more of this! we searched the internet in order to get ready for much more trips to Tunbridge Wells. with a little help from some great people from the Tunbridge Wells Football Club we discovered Manor Court Farm in Ashurst. (i'll do some extra articles on the football club, our favourite pub and the B&B we always stay over later on, there are some nice stories to be told about them as well)
the rest of the story about our family and Tunbridge Wells you can consider as a "neverending love story". since the beginning of 2009 we try to visit the town at least every 2 months for weekends, short breaks and larger holidays and we made lots of friends in the town and it's surroundings.
meanwhile, we were in the local press as well as regular tunbridge wells visitors, later on i'll post some links where you can see and hear us, it's really amusing
This is in brief how we fell in love with Tunbridge Wells. of course there's much more to be told, visiting Tunbridge Wells as much as possible is our main goal in life.
unfortunately, our favourite pub, The Ragged Trousers at The Pantiles, doesn't have a website, but i can assure you the pub is highly recommended by the whole of our family!
more links to come, but just try out the ones above and you'll already get a good view on what we mean
People ask us: why Tunbridge Wells? By making this blog, we want to show everyone why we love Tunbridge Wells so much. In the next couple of days, i'll post some pictures and some nice stories about our holidays in this marvellous town. After you've seen the pictures and read the stories, you'll see what we mean
A special column in this blog will be dedicated to the best football club in the world, Tunbridge Wells Football Club. The club deserves any credit they can get, it is run by some wonderful people who would give their heart and soul for the club, it's the real heart of Kentish football.
We sure hope you'll enjoy this blog and please feel free to leave comments to improve this blog.
Ik ben philip dhont - cindy naudts - amy, sara, andrew
Ik ben een man en woon in vilvoorde (belgium) en mijn beroep is opvoeder.
Ik ben geboren op 23/10/1971 en ben nu dus 53 jaar jong.
Mijn hobby's zijn: tunbridge wells, football, petanque.
a belgian family with a heart for tunbridge wells
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