Faversham Town Centre

Summary

A small Kent market town with an exceptional concentration of medieval and Tudor buildings — Market Place, the Guild Hall, and Abbey Street, one of England’s finest surviving medieval streetscapes.

About this location

Faversham is a market town in the North Kent Downs with a long mercantile and brewing history. Abbey Street — running south from the Market Place to the site of the medieval abbey — is one of the most complete medieval and Tudor streets in England, with a continuous row of 15th and 16th-century timber-framed buildings on both sides. The street has been in conservation management for decades and is largely free of modern insertions at street level.

The Market Place has the 1574 Guild Hall (a timber-framed building on arched ground-level colonnades) at its centre. The surrounding commercial streets have Georgian and Victorian facades over medieval plots. The creek running south-east from the town (the Faversham Creek, connecting to the Swale) was the source of the town’s trade as a river port.

For productions, Faversham gives a compact English medieval and Tudor streetscape at a quality comparable to Lavenham but at smaller scale and without Lavenham’s heavy tourist traffic. Abbey Street in particular is specific and complete enough to serve as a period street without dressing. Swale Borough Council handles filming permits.