Woodnesborough

Woodnesborough itself has no hotels of its own, being a small residential village, so anyone wanting a proper hotel stay is best looking a few minutes down the road in Sandwich or Deal. Sandwich, with its medieval streets and timber-framed buildings, has a handful of characterful inns and small hotels within walking distance of the Guildhall and the river, while Deal offers a wider spread of seafront hotels and guesthouses looking out over the Channel, along with easy access to Deal Castle and the pier. Both towns make a sensible base for exploring this part of East Kent, putting Richborough Roman Fort, Walmer Castle and the Sandwich Bay golf links all within a short drive of wherever you choose to stay.

Booking ahead is worth doing if you're visiting in summer or around one of the golf tournaments at Royal St George's, when rooms in Sandwich and Deal can fill up quickly. Outside peak season, this stretch of coast is considerably quieter, and a stay here suits anyone looking for a slower pace than the bigger Kent resort towns, with the countryside around Woodnesborough itself offering a genuinely rural contrast to the coastal towns either side of it.

Woodnesborough itself is a small residential village, but it makes a handy, quiet base for exploring this stretch of East Kent, which is unusually rich in history for such a small area.

• Sandwich — One of the original Cinque Ports and one of the best-preserved medieval towns in England, with timber-framed streets, the Guildhall Museum, and the Salutation Gardens designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens. It's about two miles east of Woodnesborough.
• Richborough Roman Fort and Amphitheatre — Run by English Heritage, this is where the Roman invasion of Britain began in AD 43. The remains of a triumphal arch base, fort walls and an amphitheatre survive, with a visitor centre explaining the site's finds.
• Deal Castle — A Tudor artillery fort built by Henry VIII to defend the coast, with its distinctive rounded bastions and underground passages, a short drive from Woodnesborough on the seafront at Deal.
• Walmer Castle and Gardens — Another Henry VIII coastal fort, later converted into a stately home for the Lords Warden of the Cinque Ports, including the Duke of Wellington and the Queen Mother; it has eight acres of gardens to explore.
• Royal St George's Golf Club — This Sandwich links course has repeatedly hosted The Open Championship and sits amid the dunes of Sandwich Bay, alongside other well-regarded links such as Prince's and Royal Cinque Ports.
• Sandwich Bay Bird Observatory — A stretch of coastal habitat between Sandwich and Deal popular for birdwatching, with guided walks and seasonal migration watches.

The village itself has limited dining, so most visitors head into Sandwich, a short drive or cycle away, for its pubs and cafes around the Guildhall and along Strand Street. Deal's seafront has a good spread of independent cafes, fish and chip shops and restaurants making the most of the day's catch. For a proper pub lunch, the villages dotted around Woodnesborough — Eastry, Ash and Worth among them — each have their own traditional Kentish pub serving classic British food.

Camping around Woodnesborough means pitching up in quiet East Kent countryside within easy reach of the coast at Sandwich and Deal. As with everywhere else in England, wild camping is not legal here without the landowner's express permission, so plan on a proper campsite or a farm pitch arranged in advance rather than pulling off a lane and setting up for the night. The terrain in this part of Kent is gentle and low-lying — flat farmland and the marshy fringes of the river Stour giving way to sand dunes and shingle along the coast — so it suits easy cycling and walking rather than anything strenuous, and pitches tend to be sheltered rather than exposed.

The best camping season here runs from late spring to early autumn, broadly May to September, when the days are longest and the coastal weather is at its most reliable; this stretch of Kent can be breezy off the sea even in summer, so a sturdy tent and decent pegs are worth having regardless of the month. Outside those months, sites in the area tend to be quieter, with many smaller campsites closing over winter, though some year-round options remain for those happy to wrap up.

For anyone who wants the outdoor feel without the full camping kit, glamping options in the wider Sandwich and Deal area range from simple bell tents and shepherd's huts to more comfortable static pods, often on working farms or smallholdings a short drive from Woodnesborough. These tend to book up well in advance for the summer months, particularly around the Sandwich golf tournaments and the school holidays, so early planning pays off. Whichever way you camp, the flat lanes around Woodnesborough make it easy to cycle into Sandwich or along the coast to Deal, and the Stour valley and Sandwich Bay both offer good walking straight from a tent door.