THE CHAS GUIDE TO CANTERBURY ARCHITECTURE


Welcome to the CHAS guide to Canterbury buildings, their styles and features.

The CHAS website was launched in 2009, covering just the Society, its meetings and its excursions.  Major extensions since then have been the Notebook (history) pages in 2011; the Cathedral pages in 2012; the launch of Canterbury Times articles in early 2013, and the first ‘Research’ pages later that year.

Following three years of design, investigation and photography, we are launching a new section on Canterbury’s architecture.  The site as a whole now includes 660 pages and over 2,500 photographic images.  For IT geeks, it holds 200 MB of information.

The Architectural pages represent the work of David Lewis (of Canterbury) and Jeremy Dunhill, with important contributions from Alan Thistleton, David Lewis (of Whitstable) and Joyce Ainslie.  Sue Chambers and others have helped with the field work.  The main printed works consulted are listed in the Bibliography – see button on the right.

The new Architectural pages have two main sections: Styles and Features:

  • Click the Styles tab above to discover the various building styles adopted in the city over the past 1000 years or so.  For each, we provide a brief outline of the style, its historical perspective, and its main features, all backed up with local examples. 
  • Or click the Features tab for a selection of building features that can be found across the city, with location details to help you find them in our streets.

If you think you’ve found more or better examples, then let us know using the Get in Touch button on the right hand side.