Best Bluebells In East Kent
Best Places to See Bluebells in East Kent 2025
Canterbury, Ashford, Tenterden, Sittingbourne & Faversham
Discover the best places to see bluebells in East Kent in 2025 with our expert guide. Explore stunning bluebell displays in gardens, forests, parks, and stately homes, including a national pinetum and ancient historical woodlands blooming throughout April and May.
Learn More
Learn fascinating facts about bluebells, including their history and folklore, and take a fact or fiction quiz to test your knowledge of beautiful bluebells at the bottom of our feature.
Bluebell Events
See our Bluebell Events in Kent feature for events in the Garden of England, and discover more of the top places to see bluebells in Kent check out our guide here.
Check out our Things To Do and What’s On categories for lots more great ideas for attractions and events in Kent. Discover even more in our Features section, packed with round-ups of school holiday ideas and inspiration in Kent, the latest film releases, and inspiring articles on all the best activities and attractions that Kent has to offer.
See Kent, Know Kent
By Julia Roy
TOP BLUEBELLS IN EAST KENT
BLUEBELL SPECTACULAR IN TENTERDEN
At Hole Park, Rolvenden, Tenterden, check out their Bluebells Barometer to see the best time to visit. The colourful gardens enjoy far-reaching views over the hills, woods, and fields of the picturesque Kentish Weald. They are a skilful mix of formal design and more naturalised planting, giving colour throughout the seasons.
AWESOME ASHFORD
Ashford’s Boldshaves Garden is a secluded private estate surrounded by ancient woodland in an area of outstanding natural beauty on the eastern edge of the Kent Weald, and at this woodland, you can see bluebells this Spring.
Hamstreet Woods National Nature Reserve near Ashford is a remnant of an ancient forest that once covered the whole Weald, part of the larger Orlestone Forest after the last Ice Age. In Spring, the floor of the woods is filled with bluebells, primrose, and white wood anemones. Three way-marked trails between 2.5-5km are mapped on the information board at the entrance.
Banks of bluebells at Ashford Warren & Hoads Wood in Ashford, at this wood pasture of geological and historical interest. See also seasonal grazing animals, including cattle and Konik horses, in the over 43 hectares of woodland. Parking at the end of the lane is on a slope with an uneven surface. Dogs welcome.
See stunning displays of bluebells in the Spring King’s Wood in Challock, Ashford, which is in the heart of the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Beauty. With 588ha of mixed conifer and broadleaf woodland for you to enjoy. Free parking.
Hemsted Forest, Ashford, will have floors of bluebells to explore in its 398 hectares of woodland, run by Forestry England. Free parking and dogs are allowed.
CANTERBURY WOODS
Upper Eliot Pond and Bluebell Woods in Canterbury, near University Road, is a mixed deciduous woodland known as the Bluebell Woods. A stream runs from Upper Eliot down to Lower Eliot Pond, a small to medium pond, south of Bluebell Wood next to a footpath.
Spong Wood, also in Canterbury, is home to a range of wildlife and fauna, including bluebells in this ancient 18-hectare woodland run by the Kent Wildlife Trust. As you see bluebells in Kent here, you may even glimpse roe deer wandering through the trees and lots more. There are waymarked paths but no wheelchair access. The surface leading from the car park slopes, and access is via a rough track, which is muddy when wet and has limited parking.
HERNE BAY HIGHLIGHTS
East Blean Wood National Nature Reserve, Herne Bay, is a Kent Wildlife Trust site that is one of the richest of all Kent’s woodland habitats, and this 122-hectare site has sunny glades surrounded by flora, fauna and wildlife, including bluebells. Dogs are allowed. Plus, plenty of bluebells at the 490-hectare ancient wood, West Blean and Thorndon Woods.
BLUEBELLES IN FAVERSHAM
In Faversham, visit the Oare Gunpowder Works Country Park for blankets of bluebells, described as having an eerie tranquillity as one walks past the series of old gunpowder buildings and Waterways to the sound of singing birds and trickling water. Dogs are allowed, and free parking.
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Areas of bluebells and other plants at Perry Wood in Faversham, part of the Kent Downs AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty), are described as a beautiful, tranquil mixed woodland with panoramic views that stretch from Sandwich, Wye Downs to the Isle of Sheppey and the Swale. The car park is in Selling, Faversham.
SITTINGBOURNE SIGHTS
Hop on board the Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway in Sittingbourne for incredible sights of wild Bluebells through the woodland and alongside the track. It’s a beautiful location with attractions including unlimited rides on the passenger steam trains from Warren Wood station to Stony Shaw and back again. Click here for more details of their Bluebells In The Wood Steam Event day, and see our events section below for their Bluebells and Teddy Bear Competition event.
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FASCINATING FLORA
Learn more about bluebells with our round of facts and folklore!
Did you know that over half the world’s populations of these iconic wildflowers grow in the UK and that bluebells are protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981? You would be fined if you dug one up. According to the Kent Wildlife Trust’s Amazing Facts about the flower, it takes several years for a native bluebell seed to grow into a bulb & subsequently flower, and folklore indicates that bluebells ring at daybreak to call fairies to the woods. For more delightful bluebell facts, click here.
Bluebell’s Latin name, Hyacinthoides, comes from a Greek myth: when the Prince Hyacinthus died, the tears of the god Apollo spelt the word ‘alas’ on the petals of the hyacinth flower that sprang up from his blood, according to the Kent Wildlife Trust.
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FUN FACT OR FICTION
Download Forestry England’s game of Bluebell True or False to learn more about the fascinating flowers and their history. Find out if bluebells are always blue, how many petals they have and if the UK has the most!
See Kent, Know Kent
Picture Credit: © Top to bottom: Bredgar & Wormshill Light Railway in Sittingbourne
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