Where families actually go in and around Gravesend

This one has nothing to do with mortgages. It is the list we give people who have just moved here, or who are thinking about it and want to know what there is to do at a weekend once the boxes are unpacked.

We have deliberately written about places rather than dates. Events come and go, and a list of them is out of date within weeks. These are the places that are here all year, and they are worth knowing about whether you have lived here a fortnight or a lifetime.

Outdoors, and free

Shorne Woods Country Park, a few minutes east of town, is the one most families end up at repeatedly. Proper woodland, decent paths, and enough space for children to be as loud as they like.

Fort Gardens, in the town itself, sits on the site of the old riverside fortifications. Handy for an hour rather than a day.

Camer Park, out at Meopham, is the one people from the villages use, and it is quieter than Shorne for that reason.

The Gravesend Promenade runs along the river and is the best free thing in the town, for reasons we will come to.

The river, which is what makes Gravesend different

Plenty of Kent towns have parks. Gravesend has a working river, and it is genuinely a spectacle if you have not lived by one.

From the Town Pier and the promenade you can watch the shipping go up and down the Thames, which occupies children for far longer than you would expect and costs nothing at all.

There is also the ferry across to Tilbury, which is a small adventure in itself: a short crossing, a look back at the town from the water, and home again.

Active

Cyclopark is the surprise. A purpose-built cycling and outdoor sports facility on the edge of town, with circuits and trails, and it is unusual for a town of this size to have anything like it. Free to walk into and look round.

Cascades and Cygnet are the two leisure centres, and they are what most local families use for swimming.

Indoors

The Woodville is the town's theatre and concert venue, and worth checking rather than assuming a town this size has nothing on.

The Blake Gallery is small and central.

Gravesend Borough Market is in the middle of town and is the sort of place worth wandering through rather than making a special trip for.

Football

Ebbsfleet United play at Northfleet, which gives you a Saturday afternoon without a trip into London and without London prices.

Just outside

Gad's Hill Place at Higham was Charles Dickens's home. The landscape north of it, out towards the marshes, is the landscape of Great Expectations, and walking it on a grey afternoon is a genuinely atmospheric thing to do with older children.

One honest caveat

Opening times, admission and what is running change constantly, and we are not going to print any of it here and send you on a wasted trip six months from now. Everything above is worth checking before you set off.

What we can vouch for is that these places exist, they are here all year, and between them they cover most weekends.

Why a mortgage broker is writing about parks

Because we live and work here, and because the thing people most want when they are considering a move is the stuff nobody puts in a listing. If that is where you are, we are happy to talk about the practical side too, with a free initial consultation and without obligation.

But mostly: take the ferry. It is better than it sounds.

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