Designer Outlet Ashford – The McArthurGlen designer outlet is on Kimberley Way, just down the road from Ashford International. Under one roof are scores of luxury fashion and lifestyle brands, selling their wares at discounts of up to 60% off the recommended retail price. Just a few of the labels here include Boss, Levi’s, Nike, Tommy Hilfiger, Diesel and Calvin Klein Jeans. If you get peckish there’s a cluster of eateries like Pizza Express, Wagamama and Subway.

Godinton House & Gardens – Immediately northwest of Ashford is a country estate that was the seat of the Toke family for more than 455 years up to 1895. Since the last owner passed away in 1996, the estate has been looked after by a charitable trust and opens to visitors for guided tours. The house is a Jacobean marvel with curving gables and holds a strong collection of decorative arts in sumptuous period rooms. You’ll see the panelled great hall, the ornate plasterwork in the white drawing room, the vivid wallpapers in the Chinese room and the masterful carvings on the Jacobean staircase.

Willesborough Windmill- Open on weekends (and Wednesdays in the summer holidays) from the end of March to the End of October, the Willesborough Windmill is an imposing smock mill built in 1869. Clad with weatherboard and whitewashed, the mill came through a restoration in 1991 and uses a 14-horsepower Hornsby engine to produce its own stoneground wholemeal bread flour when the wind isn’t blowing. Inside everything is in working order, and kids can make their own flour on the querns and take it home with them. The mill’s own wholemeal flour is sold at the barn, and there’s also a cafe for a cup of tea and slice of homemade cake.

Ashford Borough Museum – Housed in a 17th-century building in the Church Yard at the heart of Ashford, the Borough Museum reveals the area’s past. There are artefacts and photographs from the forgotten prisoner of war camps in the borough, medical equipment from two local former hospitals as well as lots of railway memorabilia like posters to models. Going back much further you can view the leg bone of a 200-million-year-old dinosaur and artefacts from the Neolithic Period to the Anglo-Saxons.

Victoria Park – Ashford’s largest and most central park is on former farmland purchased in 1898. The park is contained to the north by the meandering Great Stour River, and this forms the Ashford Green Corridor. One monument in Victoria Park with a fascinating back-story is the 45-ton Harper Fountain. This allegorical work representing the four quarters of the world was sculpted for the 1862 International Exhibition, held where London’s Natural Science Museum stands today. After the event it was bought by a local dealer who donated it to the town in 1912.

Kent & East Sussex Railway – You can ride this light railway line from the town of Tenterden, ten miles southwest of Ashford, to Bodiam in East Sussex. Your steam or diesel-powered train will take 50 minutes to reach Bodiam, stopping at four stations on the route. The line dates back to 1900 and closed to passengers in 1954. Since 1974 volunteers have helped to reopen the line piece by piece, adding the extension to Bodiam in 2000. Services run on weekends throughout the year, as well as on weekdays in summer.