Kent: Garden of England | Preview (Channel 5)

Narrated by Bill Nighy, this series celebrates the beauty of Kent - the Garden of England. From the White Cliffs of Dover to the marshlands of the Thames Estuary, we spend a day with those who live, work and play in this beautiful county harvesting the very best England has to offer.

They start our celebration of Kent as the sun rises over an old WW2 grass airstrip. Here we wheel out Elizabeth, a 1944 Spitfire. Soon we’re flying high, barrel-rolling over the White Cliffs of Dover in the capable hands of ‘Parky’ Parkinson, a Spitfire veteran with 2,000 hours flying time under his belt.

Further along the coast, in Margate, holiday makers are waking up in a hotel that seems to herald from that same era. Run by Margate’s Eccentric Aunt, Jane Bishop, the hotel was saved from the bulldozer in the mid ‘90s and is now at the centre of Margate’s artistic revival.

Heading south, we travel to the hills above Folkstone to celebrate harvest. Here, 30 retired Gurkhas and their families have created a community garden, growing many of the vegetables they remember from Nepal. Today is their harvest lunch, some 20 Nepalese dishes all cooked with ingredients from their garden in Kent.

Heading west along the coast, we swap the Gurkhas’ little farm for Kent’s little railway. At one third the size of a mainline railway, the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch line runs for over 13 miles along the Kent coast. Despite its size, it’s a fully-fledged commercial railway, carrying over 100,000 passengers a year.

Leaving the steam trains chuffing along, our final destination is a secret location near Dover. Here we meet the Chough Mums, Liz Corry and Laura Gardner of the Kent Wildwood Trust, and their eight fledglings. Those are Choughs, a red billed crow that died out in Kent 200 years ago.

Hand reared by Liz and Laura they now fly free over the White Cliffs once more, only returning to their aviary for dinner as the sun sets on what has been an unforgettable day in the Garden of England.

Kent: Garden of England begins Wednesday 11th September at 8pm on Channel 5.