Cassius Dio provided the first historical record of a battle on British soil. When Aulus Plautius invaded in AD 43, the Brythons under Caratacus and Togodumnus retreated from an opening encounter in eastern Kent to the Medway between Aylesford and Rochester, where the pursuing Romans found them massed on the western bank. Auxiliary troops swam across to attack the British chariot horses, while the main army crossed the river in the confusion. The next day, Hosidius Geta’s legion mounted a surprise attack and won him a triumph, despite the Brythons’ three-to-one numerical superiority. Around 5,000 Britons were killed, and 850 Romans. The Celts retreated to the Thames, but were only delaying the inevitable.

Greenwich’s Placentia Palace was built as Bella Court in 1443 by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, who was removed within four years at Queen Margaret’s behest. This was after all the ultimate des. res., in a fantastic location next to a huge deer park and near the road to Canterbury, and with easy river access to London Town and Westminster. She changed its name to ‘Placentia’, meaning ‘Pleasure’, which was often replaced with the friendlier ‘Pleasaunce’. Substantially rebuilt by Henry VII, it was the birthplace of HENRY VIII, MARY I, and ELIZABETH I, and home to other famous royals. Charles II rashly demolished it in 1660 for something new that was never constructed. Instead, the site accommodated the Greenwich Hospital three decades later.

Although STEPHEN GRAY from Canterbury started as an apprentice in his father’s dyeing business, he assisted the great astronomer John Flamsteed with observations – an association that hobbled his scientific career by incurring the enmity of Isaac Newton, Flamsteed’s domineering rival. Sick and poor, Gray ended up in 1720 teaching at Charterhouse, where he made an epoch-making discovery: that a static charge could be conducted along a wire. At Reverend Granville Wheler’s home Otterden Place, he performed experiments inside and outside, finally achieving electrical conduction across 800 feet and establishing the principle of insulation. Gray’s celebrated ‘Flying Boy’ experiment would also demonstrate electrical induction. Benjamin Franklin later tried stealing the credit, but it was Gray who won the Royal Society’s first two Copley Medals

In 1842, on a trip to America, Charles Dickens befriended Edgar Allan Poe, who two years earlier had reviewed ‘Barnaby Rudge’ unflatteringly despite enjoying Rudge’s pet raven Grip. Poe was delighted to learn that ‘Grip’ was based on Dickens’ characterful pet of that name, who had died of lead poisoning a year before, been stuffed, and was kept at Gads Hill. Three years later, she would inspire Poe’s greatest poetic creation, ‘The Raven’. Now restored, this “Most Famous Bird in the World” is displayed at the Free Library of Philadelphia, and will see Kent nevermore.

Kent was central to the story of the Ashes. England captain IVO BLIGH, lord of the manor of Cobham, went down in cricketing history for his part in the 1882-3 test series in Australia. It started when the ‘Sporting Times’ spoof obituary of English cricket after the previous series prompted him to announce his aim of regaining England’s “ashes”. After the series was won 2-1, some Australian women gave him an urn with the ashes of a local bail that bore a ditty naming “Ivo”. He married one of them, who thereby became the Countess of Darnley. After his death, she generously gifted the urn to the MCC.

While filming in Kent, Kim Novak attended surely the most historic Hollywood gathering outside California. With the legendary Judy Garland in England to make a special performance at the London Palladium, Oscar-winning great George Sanders and his wife Benita Hume, Ronald Colman’s widow, invited her to young Juliet Colman’s Hallowe’en party at their home, Weeks Farm in Egerton. Incredibly, the 130 guests, who stayed till 5.30am, also included Vivian Leigh and Garland’s 18-year-old daughter, Liza Minnelli. Consequently, Shere Khan, Dorothy Gale, Scarlett O’Hara, and Sally Bowles all met in one Kent farmhouse. Within eight years, Sanders, Garland, and Leigh were all dead; but Minnelli would outdo her mother by winning an Oscar for ‘Cabaret’ (1972).

After attending Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in Paris, ROSEMARY HUME from Sevenoaks co-founded the Petit Cordon Bleu cookery school in Sloane Street. When the flower-arranger Constance Spry offered to write a book showcasing her best dishes, Hume agreed, having no literary skills. The ‘Constance Spry Cookery Book’, credited to Constance Spry & Rosemary Hume, became a familiar feature on the kitchen bookshelf. In 1953, possibly suggested by the Jubilee Chicken created for George V in 1935, Hume designed a dish specially for Queen Elizabeth‘s coronation that she initially called Poulet Reine Elizabeth. Unusually for the period, it was made with curry powder. It caught on under its now traditional name, Coronation Chicken.