Canterbury

St Augustine's Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Canterbury, Kent, England. In 597 Saint Augustine arrived in England, having been sent by Pope... Gregory I, on what might nowadays be called a revival mission. The King of Kent at this time was Æthelberht, who happened to be married to a Christian, Bertha. Whether or not his spouse influenced him, he allowed Augustine to found a monastery just outside the walls of Canterbury to the east of the city. King Æthelberht ordered the church to be erected of "becoming splendour, dedicated to the blessed apostles Peter and Paul, and endowed it with a variety of gifts" William Thorne, the late fourteenth-century chronicler of the Abbey, records 598 as the year of the foundation. Already standing on the site were three Saxon churches, dedicated respectively to Saints Pancras, Peter and Paul, and finally Mary. The Saxon-phase remains of the church of Saint Pancras are still extant, however, the other two churches were rebuilt by the Normans into one building. One of the main purposes of the abbey right from the outset was as a burial place for the Kings of Kent and the Archbishops of Canterbury.
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Canterbury Castle is a Norman Castle in Canterbury, Kent, England . It is ten minutes walk from Canterbury East Station and main bus station around... City Wall. Canterbury Castle was one of the three original Royal castles of Kent . They were all built soon after the Battle of Hastings, on the main Roman road from Dover to London. This was the route taken by William the Conqueror in October 1066, and they were built originally as motte-and-bailey castles to guard this important route. A wooden motte and bailey castle was erected in 1066 - its motte may be the mound which is still visible in the Dane John gardens near the stone castle , with Dane John deriving from donjon. The great stone keep was largely constructed in the reign of Henry I as one of three Royal castles in Kent. This massive structure, which has dimensions of about 98 by 85 feet externally at the base, was originally probably at least 80 feet high. It is mainly made of flint and sandstone rubble. By the 13th century the castle had become the county gaol.
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The Westgate is a medieval gatehouse in Canterbury, Kent, England. This 60-foot-high western gate of the city wall is the largest surviving city gate... in England. Built of Kentish ragstone around 1379, it is the last survivor of Canterbury's seven medieval gates, still well-preserved and one of the city's most distinctive landmarks. The road still passes between its drum towers, and there is just enough room for a double-decker bus to pass beneath. This scheduled monument and Grade I listed building houses the hundred-year-old West Gate Towers Museum, which as of July 2011 was open every day from 10am to 4:30pm, although it is currently closed for legal reasons. Access to the museum and roof is via spiral staircases only. Canterbury was walled by the Romans around 300 AD. This has been consistently the most important of the city's gates as it is the London Road entrance and the main entrance from most of Kent. The present towers are a medieval replacement of the Roman west gate, rebuilt around 1380. There was a gate here at the time of the Norman conquest, which is thought to have been Roman.
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The Marlowe Theatre is a major 1200-seat theatre in Canterbury, England. It closed in March 2009 for redevelopment and a brand-new Marlowe Theatre... re-opened on 4 October 2011. It was named after the playwright Christopher Marlowe, who was born and attended school in the city. In front of the present theatre is a 19th-century statue of a Muse surrounded by small effigies of characters from Marlowe's plays. The theatre previously occupied another site on St Margaret's Street, which was demolished in 1982. The most recent building in The Friars was built in 1933 as the Friars Cinema, where on 11 May 1944 the film A Canterbury Tale received its world premiere. It re-opened as a theatre in July 1984, an event marked by the reinauguration of the Canterbury Festival. The Marlowe Theatre closed for re-development in March 2009. The last performance in the building was a gala performance called A Night Of A Thousand Stars, which took place on Sunday, 22 March 2009. Despite continued use, the converted cinema was a large space rather unsuited to a theatre.
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Trevor David Pinnock CBE is an English conductor, harpsichordist, and occasional organist and pianist. He is best known for his association with the... period-performance orchestra The English Concert which he helped found and directed from the keyboard for over 30 years in baroque and early classical music. He is a former artistic director of the National Arts Centre Orchestra and founded The Classical Band in New York. Since his resignation from The English Concert in 2003, Pinnock has continued his career as a conductor, appearing with major orchestras and opera companies around the world. He has also performed and recorded as a harpsichordist in solo and chamber music and conducted and otherwise trained student groups at conservatoires. Trevor Pinnock won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Bach's Brandenburg Concertos with the European Brandenburg Ensemble, an occasional orchestra formed to mark his 60th birthday. Trevor Pinnock was born in Canterbury, where his grandfather had run a Salvation Army band. His father was Kenneth Alfred Thomas Pinnock, a publisher, and his mother, Joyce Edith, née Muggleton, was an amateur singer.
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Tacita Dean is an English visual artist who works primarily in film. She is one of the Young British Artists, and was a nominee for the Turner Prize... in 1998. Tacita Dean was born in Canterbury, in Kent. While she was growing up, her family lived next door to the legendary countertenor Alfred Deller and his family . Her brother is architect Ptolemy Dean. Dean was educated at Kent College, Canterbury. She studied at Falmouth School of Art, graduating in 1988. From 1990–2, Dean studied for a Masters degree at the Slade School of Fine Art. Dean held her first solo exhibition, The Martyrdom of St Agatha and Other Stories, at Galerija Skuc, Maribor, Slovenia. In 1995, she was included in General Release: Young British Artists held at the XLVI Venice Biennale. She is one of the "key names", along with Jake and Dinos Chapman, Gary Hume, Sam Taylor-Wood, Fiona Banner and Douglas Gordon, of the Young British Artists . Her work actually had little in common with the prominent YBAs, Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin. In 1997, Dean moved to London.
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Margot Grahame was an English actress most noted for starring in The Informer and The Crimson Pirate. She started acting in 1930 and made her last... screen appearance in 1958. Her family went to South Africa when she was three years old, which led to her being educated there. She began her stage career with Dennis Neilson-Terry a few weeks after leaving school at the age of 14, in Pretoria. She made her London stage debut in 1927 as understudy to Mary Glynne in The Terror. Her screen debut was in the 1930 film Rookery Nook. Grahame was the highest-paid actress in England during the 1930s, before going to America, where she performed in a number of films of the 30's, 40's and 50's. Hollywood producers' interest was peaked that she had appeared in forty-two major roles in English films in only three years. Grahame was signed to a long-term contract by RKO. She appeared as the prostitute girlfriend of Gypo Nolan in John Ford's The Informer . She followed this performance with a role as leading lady Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers . She performed with Bebe Daniels in The Fabulous Joe .
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Anthony George Coe is an English composer and jazz musician who plays clarinet, bass clarinet, and tenor saxophone. Coe began his performing career... playing with Humphrey Lyttelton's band from 1957 to 1962. In 1965 he was invited to join Count Basie's band and has since played with the John Dankworth Orchestra, The Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Derek Bailey's Company, Stan Tracey, Michael Gibbs, Stan Getz, Dizzy Gillespie, Bob Brookmeyer and performed under Pierre Boulez, as well as leading a series of groups of his own, including Coe Oxley & Co, together with drummer Tony Oxley. He played on John Martyn's 1973 album Solid Air. He has also worked with Matrix, a small ensemble formed by clarinettist Alan Hacker, with a wide-ranging repertoire of early, classical and contemporary music, the Danish Radio Big Band, Metropole Orchestra and Skymasters in Holland.
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Joseph McManners is an English singer-songwriter and actor. McManners decided to become a singer after he heard the song My Heart Will Go On whilst... watching the film Titanic at the age of 8. He plays the violin and the piano and is learning to play the guitar. At that age, he sung 'In Dreams', though it is not the version which is featured in The Lord of the Rings with Howard Shore as the composer. McManners auditioned for the lead role in the BBC's operatic version of "The Little Prince" directed by Francesca Zambello and was chosen from 25000 others to play the part. During filming for "The Little Prince", he was spotted by executives from Sony BMG which led to a UK£2 million 4-album record deal. McManners went to Prague together with his producer Nick Patrick in 2005 to record the music for his first album In Dreams. Most of the music was performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, and Joseph's brother plays violin on "Where is Love". The album was released on 5 December 2005. His debut album release reached number five in the classical charts within a few days.
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Chris Simmons is an English actor who is best known for playing DC Mickey Webb in The Bill. He moved to Gravesend, Kent where he attended Saint... Georges Cofe Secondary School and lived on Singlewell Road. Simmons used to work as a diver for the River Thames but quit his job to become an actor. He started working on the river when he was sixteen years old with his father. He was an apprentice for five years, Simmons once even pulled a dead body out of the river. He has guest starred in Casualty and Doctors. He was originally made famous by appearing on the ITV series, Desperately Seeking Stardom, in which, a group of would-be actors were sent to Hollywood to try to find acting roles. Previously he has run the London Marathon. He is very supportive of many different charities and is a Patron for the CPC Kent charity. He also appeared in The Bill for a number of years as DC Mickey Webb until the series ended in 2010. He is currently working on a youth initiative which he revealed in 2010. In October 2011 he appeared in EastEnders as Mark Garland, a love interest for Kat Moon, for a few episodes.
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