Roll roll up, for the Legends of the circus

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The circus is coming to town!

Santus Circus is setting up the big top in both Ashford and Tenterden later this month.

The current circus owners are the eighth generation of their family to excel in the circus arts. Each year they take a new all-human production of their circus out on tour to entertain residents across Kent and the south-east.

Ernest and Roger Santus are members of one of France’s most illustrious circus families and stage the show with members of their own families and performers from across the globe.

Taking on almost every sort of skill and presentation, from hand-balancing and trapeze to unicycling, juggling, and acrobatics, they’ve performed across Europe and in Asia, and they’ve won top prizes at the prestigious Monte Carlo Circus Festival.

This is a traditional circus with a French flavour. The 2016 production is titled Legends and includes top international artists from Brazil, Spain, Trapeze artist Lucien, Right, the Lucius Daredevil Riders Mongolia, Romania and Morocco as well as Britain and France.

The performance lasts for about two hours and features rope-walking, juggling, trapeze, aerial straps, the ‘Chinese pole’, hula-hooping, contortionism, chair-balancing, and gentle, friendly clowning, as well as the nerve-tingling thrills of the Globe of Death – three motorcyclists looping the loop inside a tiny steel sphere.

Santus Circus performs under a colourful and heated Big Top.

Prices start from £9 (but look out for discount vouchers to get money off). A family ticket for two adults and two children costs £40. Every Wednesday all seats are priced at £7, on a firstcome-first-served basis.

Santus Circus will be putting on s h o ws a t Tent e r d e n Recreation Ground f r om Wednesday to Sunday, July 13 to 17. It will then make the short journey to Ashford where shows will be at Great Chart Recreation Ground, Great Chart from Tuesday to Sunday, July 19 to 24.

But you are advised to doublecheck the dates on the Santus Circus website.

For tickets and information call 07843 884787 or 07952 418487 and for show times visit santuscircus.com Circular walk from Bridge through orchards and cornfields, starting at 10am from Bridge recreation ground. Picnic lunch. Not suitable for dogs. Two and a half miles – starting at 1pm from St Martin’s Battery car park, South Military Road, Dover: White Cliffs Countryside Partnership. Five miles – starting at 10am from Albany Place, Dover: Dover & Thanet Rights of Way Society. Five miles – starting at 10am near the bandstand on Deal seafront: White Cliffs Ramblers. Ten miles – starting at 10am from Elms Vale recreation ground, Dover, lunch at Guston: White Cliffs Ramblers. Ten to 11 miles – starting at 10am from Wye, pub stop at Brabourne: East Kent Rambling Club. WEDNESDAY Five to six miles – starting at 10.30am from Shepherdswell green: East Kent Rambling Club. Eleven miles – starting at 10am from Boughton Lees, picnic stop: East Kent Rambling Club. THURSDAY Ten and a half miles – starting at 10am from the village hall, Staple, lunch stop in Preston: White Cliffs Ramblers.