Headcorn

Hotel options in and immediately around Headcorn are modest but well matched to the village's quiet, rural character, ranging from the golf-focused Weald of Kent Golf Course and Hotel on the edge of the village to a good spread of country bed and breakfasts and boutique guesthouses set in oast houses, farmhouses and other traditional Kentish buildings across the surrounding lanes. Many trade on the setting as much as the rooms, with gardens, orchard views or a working farm attached, and several are geared towards guests visiting the aerodrome for a skydive or flying experience, or golfers using the course. For a wider choice of larger hotels, chain options and more nightlife, Maidstone and Ashford are both within easy reach by road or rail, while still allowing an easy return to Headcorn's quieter pace in the evening.

Booking ahead is worthwhile for spring and summer weekends, when the village's small stock of rooms fills up quickly with visitors heading to Sissinghurst Castle Garden, Leeds Castle or the aerodrome itself. Many of the local B&Bs and guesthouses are family-run and offer a more personal welcome than you'd find in a larger town, often with locally sourced breakfasts and useful advice on walking routes through the surrounding orchards and hop gardens. Given Headcorn's central position in the Weald, a stay here works equally well as a quiet base for touring Kent's castles and gardens or as a stopover before an early flight or skydive from the aerodrome.

Headcorn punches well above its size for things to see and do, mostly thanks to its aerodrome and its ring of grand houses and gardens.

• Headcorn Aerodrome — Built as RAF Lashenden in 1943 as an Advanced Landing Ground for Spitfires and Mustangs ahead of D-Day, it's now Kent's busiest private airfield and home to Skydive Headcorn, one of the UK's longest-running parachute centres. Visitors can watch the jumps, take a tandem skydive themselves, or book a scenic flight or a spin in a vintage biplane.
• Sissinghurst Castle Garden — Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson's celebrated garden, built around the ruins of an Elizabethan manor, is around nine miles south-east and one of the National Trust's most visited properties, famous for its White Garden and Elizabethan tower.
• Leeds Castle — Often called "the loveliest castle in the world," Leeds Castle rises from its own lake a short drive north of Headcorn, with parkland, a maze and falconry displays that make it an easy half-day out.
• Weald of Kent Golf Course — An 18-hole course and clubhouse on the edge of the village, with lakes and parkland views and a bar and restaurant open to non-members.
• St Peter and St Paul's Church — Headcorn's substantial medieval parish church, with a fine timber south porch and a peal of bells, sits at the heart of the village alongside a scatter of well-preserved timber-framed houses.
• Hop gardens and orchards — The lanes around Headcorn are still lined with the low poled hop gardens and apple and cherry orchards that once fuelled Kent's brewing and fruit-growing industries, particularly rewarding for a summer or autumn walk or cycle.
• Egerton and the Greensand Way — The long-distance Greensand Way footpath passes close to the village, giving walkers a route up onto the ridge for views back across the Weald.

The village has a good clutch of pubs for a place its size. The George and Dragon on the high street is a traditional country pub serving locally sourced food and also doubles as a small bed and breakfast, while the White Horse offers Kentish and Sussex ales alongside classic pub grub in a building with open fires. For something more polished, the Waterside Restaurant and Bar at the Weald of Kent Golf Course overlooks the course's lakes and is open to non-golfers for lunch and dinner. Further afield, the wider Weald is well known for its vineyards and farm shops, making it easy to pick up local wine, cheese and fruit to take home.

Camping around Headcorn means pitching up in classic Kent Weald countryside — rolling orchard and hop-garden landscapes rather than dramatic coastline, with the added novelty of parachutists occasionally drifting overhead from the nearby aerodrome. As with the rest of England, wild camping is not legal here without the landowner's explicit permission, so stick to licensed campsites, certified sites and farm pitches in and around the village, several of which make the most of the gently rolling terrain with views across fields and orchards. The Weald's clay-and-greensand soil can turn heavy after wet weather, so those in tents are best planning trips for late spring through early autumn, when the ground is firmer and the days are long enough to make the most of walks along the Greensand Way or cycles through the lanes.

Late spring brings blossom in the orchards that ring the village, while summer is peak season for both camping and the aerodrome's flying and skydiving activity, so it's worth booking ahead for July and August weekends. Early autumn has its own appeal, with the hop and apple harvest under way and cooler, quieter evenings around the campfire, though pitches thin out and some smaller sites close for the season by October. For those who'd rather skip the tent pegs altogether, glamping options in the area — shepherd's huts, safari tents and converted oast-style pods — offer a comfortable way to enjoy the same orchard and farmland views, usually with proper beds and their own cooking facilities, and tend to stay open for a longer season than traditional camping.

Whichever way you camp, Headcorn's position roughly midway between Maidstone and Ashford, and a short drive from both Sissinghurst Castle Garden and Leeds Castle, makes it a well-placed base for exploring the Weald without moving your pitch each night. Good rail links from Headcorn station also mean campers without a car can still reach the village easily from London, then explore on foot, by bike or by local bus.