What We Do
Working for the Community, with the Community
Chronology of Completed Projects
The Canterbury Commemoration Society gifted statues of King Ethelbert and Queen Bertha to the City of Canterbury in May 2006. The statues were the first project which the Society undertook. They stand in Lady Wootton’s Green. The King meets his Queen as she walks home from worshipping in St Martin’s…
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This fine statue depicts Geoffrey Chaucer (c.1340-1400), known by some as the ‘Father of the English Language’, presenting the opening of his most famous work, the Canterbury Tales, to the people of the city. The plinth commemorates the pilgrims who featured in that work and the benefactors who enabled its…
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The Invicta steam locomotive, built by George and Robert Stephenson for the Canterbury-Whitstable railway (aka the ‘Crab and Winkle Line’, the world’s first steam locomotive passenger railway, 1830) was not powerful enough to haul wagons up the steep incline rising from the coast through Clowe’s Wood. The problem was solved…
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On 23 February 2024, at the South Quay Shed, Whitstable Harbour, the Lord Mayor of Canterbury, Councillor Jean Butcher, opened a permanent exhibition of a model of the harbour as it was in 1923, in the presence of many significant members of the Whitstable community and Rosie Duffield, the local…
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Little known and often hidden by weeds, two beautiful statues – Alluvia – once lay on the bed of the River Stour beside the Westgate Tower. They were early works by Jason deCairesTaylor, the world-famous sculptor of underwater art. In 2024 the Society commissioned Jason to restore the Stour statues…
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As well as raising commemorative statues, CCS has promoted Canterbury’s strikingly rich literary, artistic, scientific and ecclesiastical heritage by raising a number of blue plaques around the city. Most notable are the eight large plaques the Longport wall of St Augustine’s Abbey. The Society, whose work was spearheaded by Brian…
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In the later 20th century, as the life and work of the much-neglected female Restoration writer Aphra Behn (1640-1689) was seeping into the public consciousness after long years of neglect, scholars turned their attention to her early life, upbringing and influences. Even her place of birth was uncertain. When in…
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The Society, assisted by funding from the King’s School, took responsibility for replacing the memorial to the dynamic and somewhat controversial Alderman Simmons (1741-1807) in St Mildred’s Church. A former pupil of the King’s School, Simmons made his name (and fortune) as a miller, printer, banker MP, city improver, and…
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In 2022, CCS started holding free public readings of the (cut and edited) plays of Aphra Behn. The project was so successful that in 2023-24 it was expanded to include all Canterbury playwrights of note. Among the authors now included are Christopher Marlowe, Somerset Maugham, Goran Stefanovsky and Hugh Walpole.…
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