Attractions in Tunbridge Wells

Do you know of any attractions in Tunbridge Wells that might interest our visitors - the more unusual the better? We are starting to list some on our Attractions page on The Lancers and would like a few more! We are interested in everything from local foot spas to people who live in West Kent who offer services such as genealogy. Anything that might pique the interest of our guests will be appropriate to this page ...so long as it's decent and legal!!

Dressed salmon at Sankeys fish restaurant in Tunbridge Wells

Thank you to Sankeys, a wonderful fish restaurant just up the road, for providing the centrepiece to my garden party last Sunday. Originally I ordered the dressed salmon, but happened to go to a business networking event at the wine bar and fish restaurant a couple of days beforehand and noticed that the dressed salmon had a head on it and quite a fierce expression on its face, and a large prawn between its jaws! I decided that I and my fainthearted friends would prefer to opt for the dressed fillet option, with no head and no bits to upset us. Hypocritical I know!!

Evening meals are available for guests at The Lancers B&B in Tunbridge Wells with a little bit of notice. Hopefully this image gives you an idea of the quality and standard of the fare provided.

The Himalayan Gurkha

Joanna Lumley would love the Himalayan Gurkha, which is just over the road from us at the B&B in Tunbridge Wells. For one thing, the food is Himalayan and for another it is staffed by Gurkhas (not European au pairs looking for an extra income) and even has an 'officers' mess' on the first floor where you can dine when there's an overflow (i.e. on a Saturday night!). Actually the officers' mess is at least as nice or nicer than the restaurant on the ground floor, particularly since it has fairy lights and cute views over Church Road.

The food at the Gurkha is freshly made, very tasty but reasonably priced. I am mega fussy about 'freezer food' and 'microwaved food' and if any of this goes on at the Gurkha, then you would never know from the flavours of your dishes. I suspect it doesn't, and that they really do take each dish from square one. As one is supposed to!

If you go at lunchtime there is a £9 p.p. menu which is amazing. Too, too much for us to manage. There is a starter each; and we chose a beautifully fragrant, coriandery potato dish in a tomato, lightly spiced sauce, and the other one was deep fried onion bhajee, with an orange, mango-like dippable dip. Delicious! Actually enough for me. Was quite happy to go home well satiated at this point!

My heart sank a little when the mains came along because they looked so delicious and wimpy as it might sound, those starters were enough for me, and my appetite was at half mast.

Wow. We were permitted, on the £9 lunch deal, two mains and one side. As we don't eat meat and prawns are excluded from this deal, we chose:
Tareka dhal
Sag aloo
Curried veg

Which came accompanied by a sweet naan (delicious!!) and a perfectly serviceable plain rice (all light and fluffy).

This cost £9 each. What a deal!!

You can see the Himalayan Gurkha's website here, and stay with us overnight if you wish when you visit at The Lancers.

The Lancers featured in InsideKENT

We've got some great editorial in issue no. 6 of the glossy magazine InsideKENT. The journalist found her image of B&Bs to be proved outdated and really enjoyed her stay at The Lancers Bed & Breakfast, the former home of Dr Who actor Tom Baker. "This wonderful experience is starting to banish my image of an old-fashioned, chintzy establishment run by a harridan," she wrote. "I think I need to update my attitude!"

Dunorlan Park

Dunorlan Park is one of the prettiest places to go on a sunny day in Tunbridge Wells, and what's more, it's an easy walk from the centre of town and there's a cafe where you can get light snacks and refreshments, a great big lake with boats, and a visitor centre.

It took us 40 minutes to get to the seat on the north side of the lake where we sat down from The Lancers, and that was at an easy stroll. Another 20 minutes back max.

The geese are fat, rounded and healthy and appreciate a bit of bread. There's a boating lake where you can take out pedalos, canoes or traditional rowing boats. It's a very pretty place with a rather posh fountain and a white doric temple.

Nice park areas like this often charge their visitors quite considerably for an afternoon but this one is completely free of charge .. at the moment. Long may that continue!

Great day in London

We had a wonderful day in London. It had all the best ingredients - great food, a little bit of culture, and not too much hassle at all getting from A to B. Well, the latter seems to become increasingly important the more 'mature', shall I say, one gets.

We ambled down from The Lancers Bed and Breakfast to the Tunbridge Wells railway station, which only takes about five minutes, then onto the train for Charing Cross (50 mins). That takes you straight into the centre of London, no need for tubes or taxis. We made our way to Chinatown which is a few minutes' walk via the National Portrait Gallery (could have popped in, maybe next time) and had a wonderful fried crispy noodles with seafood at the New World Chinese Restaurant in Gerrard Place, which is just off Gerrard Street in the centre of Chinatown. This restaurant is one of our favourites but there are so many great restaurants if you like Chinese food in Gerrard Street and around. At lunchtime you can have dim sum if you wish, when lots of little trollies bring their delights for you to view and choose what you fancy. The cost of these dishes is only about £5.

There was about an hour to spare before our matinee began at the Comedy Theatre, so we strolled over to Old Compton Street and ordered a coffee on the pavement to watch the world go by. Well it certainly did! A film group from St. Martin's School of Art were doing shots of a model (see below) at the next table, and in return for letting us watch them for about half an hour we safeguarded their beer while they posed their model against various different backgrounds.

The theatre itself is lovely, the Comedy Theatre is a truely old fashioned, tiny, beautifully formed and bijou theatre. We watched The Children's Hour which was originally written by Lillian Hellman. The theatre was almost sold out. I really recommend matinees - it's so much nicer taking the train back in daylight hours!

The Tunbridge Wells Project

The other night we dropped into the Trinity Theatre for the launch of The Tunbridge Wells Project which is an online showcase for historic buildings and architecture in the town. It's the brainchild of two local photographers, David Bartholomew and local blogger anke, and the idea is to preserve memories in an easily accessible archive for future generations.

We were invited because our B&B is one of the 'historic buildings' in two respects - it's the add-on to a Grade II listed Georgian building, having been added in 1912, initially we reckon as one great big ballroom in which The Lancers was danced! That large ballroom ended up being built over a somewhat larger area than the original surveyors' plans and is split into three floors, with the later addition of the Annexe in the garden. It did remain part of the main house until 1982.

But getting back to the TW Project, there are some interesting interior and exterior shots of The Lancers in our section in the gallery. Other intriguing 'galleries' as they are called include behind-the-scenes shots of the town hall, the Opera House (which is now a Weatherspoons pub) and the local crematorium. Some of the photos are the closest any of us are going to get to seeing what the inside of the dome in the Opera House actually looks like, or the clock in the clock tower at the Trinity Theatre.

I'm uploading some images taken from The Lancers' gallery on The Tunbridge Wells Project which show you rooms that aren't pictured on our website.