You can thank our friends at Discovering Britain for this amazing trail full of Great Expectations. Thanks guys!!

Discover the changing face of the Hoo Peninsula

Despite being just 30 miles downriver from the capital, the Hoo Peninsula is a little visited area of North Kent.

It’s a fairly isolated place, sandwiched between the lower reaches of the Thames to the north and the meandering Medway to the south.

Hoo’s isolated position encouraged the development of industry, its marshlands attracted writers like Dickens and painters including Turner and Hogarth. With water on either side, Hoo has long been a strategic location for defence.

Today this is a quiet place, yet its decommissioned power stations and derelict military forts tell stories of more turbulent times.

On this short trail from the pretty village of Upnor, you’ll see the changing face of the river then go inland for a different perspective of scattered farmsteads and rolling fields.

‘Ours was the marsh country, down by the river…’ – Charles Dickens, Great Expectations, 1861