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Canterbury to Brighton / Brighton to Canterbury

Click here to return to the South menu . . .

Click here for an interactive map of the area

You can cover this ground in either of two ways:

1: The quick way Via Ashford. More or less straight through by the fastest possible way – Route 5
on the map above. That’s just plain vanilla. 34 miles. A shade under an hour drive time.

2: The longer, more interesting way via “The Cinque Ports” – Dover, Hythe, and Rye. There are
also a number of interesting side trips on offer. You could do this run in a day, but why not take an
extra day and get a lot more out of the region. 52.7 miles, about 1 1/2 hours drive time. Route 4 on
the map above.

What’s to be seen and done along the way?

Dover

Dover is one of the historic Cinque Ports. The Confederation of Cinque Ports (pronounced “sink”
ports) is a historic series of coastal towns in Kent and Sussex. It was originally formed for military
and trade purposes, but is now entirely ceremonial. The name originates in Norman French,
meaning “five ports” – Dover, Hastings, New Romney, Hythe and Sandwich. Other towns in the
region later joined the confederation. More . . .

In return for supplying 57 ships to His Majesty’s navy for 15 days a year, the ports were given a
range of privileges:

“Exemption from tax and tallage, right of soc and sac, tol and team, blodwit and fledwit, pillory and
tumbril, infangentheof and outfangentheof, mundbryce, waifs and strays, flotsam and jetsam and
ligan”.

There . . . that’s enlarged your vocabulary. Put in more familiar form:

Exemption from tax and tolls; self-government; permission to levy tolls, punish those who shed
blood or flee justice, punish minor offences, detain and execute criminals both inside and outside