Kentish Express Ashford & District
So many royal appointments...
Her Majesty The Queen’s visit to Aylesford is the first time the 93-year-old monarch has made an official visit to the county since 2016 when she visited the Royal Engineers at Brompton Barracks in Gillingham.
Just the year before, in 2015, she had been to Canterbury Cathedral and on the same damp and otherwise gloomy day, officially opened The Wing - a tribute to the Battle of Britain pilots at Capel-le-Ferne, near Folkestone.
But it wasn’t her first trip to Aylesford - she also visited the RBLI village in December 1975 to mark its Golden Jubilee celebrations and in 1956 she was at the Royal British Legion branch, based at the same site.
Her Majesty has made many trips to Kent, including even before her Coronation when, as Princess Elizabeth, she toured Maidstone Zoo in November 1946 and visited the Sir Garrard Tyrwhitt-Drake Carriage Museum in the County Town.
In 2013, she marked the departure of the Sutherland Highlanders at Howe Barracks in Canterbury. She had previously visited the barracks in November 2004 to bestow an Operational Service Medal to Lance Corporal Gary Smith.
In 2011, she came twice, to Invicta Park Barracks in Maidstone where she met Gurkhas from The 36th Engineer Regiment and later the Turner Contemporary gallery in Margate.
Her Majesty is obviously fond of the seaside town, which she also visited in July 1993 and November 2011.
Continuing with the military theme, she visited Brompton Barracks in Gillingham in 2007.
In 1989, she attended the Kent County Show in Detling, travelling by Royal train from Bearsted.
Her daughter Princess Anne was educated at Benenden School near Cranbrook between 1963 and 1968 and during her Royal Highness’s time there
The Queen made several private visits, including dropping her daughter off on her first day.
Ashford has seen The Queen more times than most Kent towns. As well as official engagements such as the one she made to the Templer Barracks in March 1981, she also made many private trips to Mersham to visit her cousin, the Countess Mountbatten of Burma, and she attended the wedding of the Countess’s daughter, Lady Amanda Knatchbull, at Ashford’s St Mary’s Parish Church in 1987.
But other towns have not missed out.
The Queen is the longest-reigning monarch in the world and during her 67 years on the throne she has found time to travel across the county, from Sheerness to Dover, Medway Towns to Gravesend, and the Isle of Grain to New Romney.
Here’s a selection of pictures from previous engagements across Kent.