MISSION STATEMENT

What started of initially as a post "O" level project way back in the late 1970s when I was required to keep myself occupied at school in the lull between the end of the "O" levels and start of the "A" levels, I decided to take on their offer photography, but had to choose a theme. Being a nice summer I asked, not thinking at all that I would get permission to do so, to ask whether I could walk the street of Dover taking photos of all the public houses. Astonishingly enough permission was given, and so started something that I would then, never have realised would have taken so much of my time.

At the same time as this a gentleman called Barry Smith had also taken on a challenge of proving or disproving the urban myth that Dover once had enough pubs in its town to allow you to drink in a different one for every day of the year. Barry published a book or pamphlet on the subject called "By the Way" which was then available in almost every pub in town.

Many years later our paths crossed and we amalgamated the information and I put it all together on this web site. However, that only included his research and my photos at the time, and covered an area of only Dover and a few surrounding villages.

Then someone suggested I did their village, and then another, then Deal and Walmer, and even later Folkestone. then some bright spark said I should do Canterbury and after considering the matter I added that as well. More and more people kept badgering me to do their village as they bordered the ones already on my web site, but I had to stop somewhere.

With all these pleads for their village to be included in a mad moment of 2014 I decided to bite the bullet and identify every pub that ever existed in Kent. I hadn't realised that part of London used to be Kent as well, but once started I couldn't back down. The challenge was accepted and I had started.

What you see on this site is a collection of archive material from any source I can get my hands on that is connected to the highlighted pub and every pub has its own page.

These archives as far as I am concerned are a personal working notebook created my me that are updated as often as I gain further information or corrections. I cannot guarantee that all the information is totally correct and I am very reliant on local knowledge to help get it accurate, but the more information I gain, I am sure the more precise the details will become.

As a kind of notebook publication, the material in its presentation isn't polished, and possibly not in chronological order either, but I am slowly getting there and it's increasing in size on an almost daily basis. One day, perhaps, I, or someone will want to put this information into book form, but if you do, please give credit to where the information came from; I do try and reference everything I gain from other sources, but I don't want to make the contents look like a university degree thesis. I also tend to work the Copyleft policy. (if you're not sure what that is, look it up, it does exist.)

However, what started out to be all my own work, now opened up to the public over the www, it has now become a collection of work from many, and although I am still doing some research myself, the majority of time is now spent adding others kind research to these pages. Thank you, and please keep it coming in.

Please feel free to use the contents for your own purposes, but if you do make some money out of them, think about sending me some, it does cost me to keep this site live each year.

Lastly, again a really big thank you to everyone who has helped me with the research, photographs, information and corrections, and if you have anything I haven't and would like to share it, my contact email is below. Although I will say I am not really interested in the family of licenses, unless of course they had something to do with the running of the pub.

The research continues.

Paul Skelton.

Photo taken 2016 turning a 72 foot canal boat around.