After another comfortable night in the Folkestone Holiday Inn Express, surprisingly better than the name would suggest, we set out on a colder but sunny day for the Battle of Britain Memorial. While we have been in the UK there have been several celebrations for the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the BoB so we thought as we were in the area where the main battles took place we would visit the memorial and, as it turned out, the rather boys ownish museum at Hawkinge.

Hawkinge was one of the most front line fighter airfields during this time and the movie "The Battle of Britain" was shot there. The museum has a number of the replica Spitfires and Hurricane that were made for it, I called it boys ownish because it seems to be run by a number of enthusiasts who have collected thousands of items over the years which are all on display so it makes looking at them all rather difficult. This is not to say they don't do a great job in preserving this historical record but i don't think they know much about displaying it all. After you have seen the 39th badly damaged Merlin engine block and the 721st piece of Messerschmitt 109 wing shot down by P/O Smith on the 10th Sept 1940 etc etc it all gets a bit much and you tend to wander past what is probably really interesting stuff but miss because of the volume on display. They also ban cameras so you can't make any sort of recored of your visit, which is a pity.

Then onto to Leeds Castle in Kent for lunch and a look around. This is a medieval castle that was owned by several Queens including Eleanor of Provence, it then past into "private" hands, however in 1923 it was bought by an American socialite, who became Lady Ballie during one of her marriages, proceeded to bring in a French interior designer to tart the place up! She did the right thing when she died and left the castle to the nation, most of it has been put back to how it might have looked before......

the only people there were from Germany, ironic eh !