Tales of Forgotten Kent: Little-Known People and Events from History

Tales of Forgotten Kent is a collection of twenty-two essays about the people and events that have largely been neglected by historians, but remain an integral part of Kent’s rich tapestry, featuring the eccentric, unusual and often overlooked tales buried within the garden of England.

Who would have thought that the cradle of British aviation was the unfashionable Isle of Sheppey, home to Britain’s first licensed pilots and the world’s first aircraft manufacturers; or that the greatest technological change in printing – computer typesetting – occurred in the small town of Westerham; and that the poet who wrote the first sonnet was not actually Shakespeare but Sir Thomas Wyatt of Allington Castle, lover of Anne Boleyn; or that Britain’s oldest school is The King’s School, Canterbury, whose alumni includes the controversial playwright Christopher Marlowe, and still plays host to ghostly legends.

Read on to unearth more of Kent’s best kept secrets and keep its forgotten tales alive.

Malcolm Horton is an author, printer and publisher who lives at the foot of the North Downs. He has written 20 historical essays for Bygone Kent, This England and Kent Life magazine and is still a regular contributor to Bygone Kent. His publishing business commissioned artists, who were members of the Royal Academy and Royal Watercolours Society, to produce definitive watercolours of the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge University and leading independent schools, from which they made limited edition prints and seven coffee table books, which had an accompanying text outlining the history of the colleges/schools. He is a member of Kent Archaeological Society (KAS), was a borough councillor in Bexley for four years, and now focusses his research and writing on his native Kent.