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Good articleCanterbury has been listed as one of the Geography and places good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
May 30, 2008Good article nomineeListed
June 21, 2023Good article reassessmentKept
Current status: Good article

Comments

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Someone might want to include this public domain 16th century map of Canterbury, http://www.cts.edu/FacHomePages/images/Rural%20England/Image16.jpg

--Imran


Was the cathedral really damaged by a "lighting storm" or is that a typo? --Bill321 —Preceding undated comment added 16:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]

See section below on "Gandhi's visit" for a comment on this. Eebkent (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]


"Canterbury today is a major tourist centre, second only to London." (my emphasis) Does anyone know if this is true? I'd have bet good money that Canterbury would be a less popular tourist destination than Oxford, Cambridge or Stratford, for a start. Harry R

I don't know, but because Canterbury is so close to France it is always full of French tourists - it's a very easy day trip. So it's not so unlikely. Redlentil 22:21, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Not according to the UK National Statistics 1. Have changed page accordingly. CheekyMonkey 17:02, 17 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Hospital of St Thomas

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Is it me, or does that section read like it has been plagiarised from somewhere? Even if it hasn't been, it feels out of place with the rest of the article as (1) the article doesn't go into anywhere near as much detail about anywhere else in the city and (2) the style of language seems far too formal. Perhaps it should be a separate article?

St Thomas Hospital

I've never read such a dreadful piece of purple prose in all my life! Can someone turn it into standard English and take out the floral twirls?

I've moved it to its own page, The Hospital of St Thomas, Canterbury, with a link from here and marked it for cleanup. It reads like something pulled from Edward Hasted's survey of Kent 200 years ago so I don't think it's a copyvio. adamsan 18:26, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Westgate Family

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I'm a Westgate.

My family's history is one of scalliwaggery and mischief, so it does not surprise me that the westgate was built 1) after crusades, which we took part in, and 2)finished right before wat tyler's rebellion.

good timing, plus a little hate for poll-taxes...

woops, we left the gate open.

"my bad, the town is taken over by a band of do-gooder civil rights activists...i mean -evil- civil rights activists.....heh-heh"

69.148.120.165 07:14, 29 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

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While searching Google for info on Canterbury, I discovered that much of this article has been copied without attribution (and presumably, without permission) from http://www.vrcanterbury.co.uk/. 68.251.151.75 03:46, 1 March 2007 (UTC) C.S. Andreas[reply]


I think you'll find, if you check the dates on the VR Canterbury site, and look back through the logs in Wikipedia before those dates, that the Wikipedia article contained that information before the VR Canterbury and it is in fact the VR Canterbury site that has copied the information without acknowledging it. If you notice at the bottom of the VR Canterbury page, it actually says at the bottom that it is GNU public license and is from the Wikipedia article on Canterbury. So Wikipedia has broken no copyrights, they are copying us not the other way around. Ben W Bell talk 08:18, 1 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Population of Canterbury

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Can editors please stop adding a figure of more than 100,000 for the population. That figure, with the citation, is clearly for the whole district - what Canterbury City Council would call Canterbury, Whitstable, Herne Bay and the surrounding villages. Anybody with any physical experience of Canterbury would know that the idea of there being more than 100,000 within the city itself is laughable.

If anybody wants to argue by using the 135,278 figure listed at http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pyramids/pages/29uc.asp, as has happened before, then first look at the other areas listed under Kent and you will soon see the breakdown is to district council level - ie Swale, rather than Faversham, Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey, for example:

Ashford Canterbury Dartford Dover Gravesham Maidstone Sevenoaks Shepway Swale Thanet Tonbridge and Malling Tunbridge Wells

Thanks Gretnagod 17:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Or even check this: http://www.upmystreet.com/local/my-neighbours/population/l/Canterbury.html

You'll notice the figures are from the same source and correctly listed as Canterbury City Council, giving the same population as 135,287. Gretnagod 21:53, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]


OK but where do the current figures come from? I've noticed the source isn't cited at all... surely its better to have the figure from the GOVERNMENT'S OFFICE OF NATIONAL STATISTICS FOR CANTERBURY than an uncited source?

Hypnoticmonkey 21:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Best answer I can give is to check the Herne Bay, Kent entry and check the references at the bottom. There, neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk has been used to find the population of the individual district (ie Canterbury City Council) wards that make up Herne Bay.

But just to stress again, the Canterbury District figure and the Canterbury City figure will be completely different. Gretnagod 22:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

rail way service changes

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reference 7 links to a southwest train web page that doesn't mention Canterbury as part of the 2009 changes that will see fast trains linking kent to London. As far as I know, no mention of Canterbury has been linked to a faster train service in the future. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.12.228.63 (talk) 06:06, 19 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA Review

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This review is transcluded from Talk:Canterbury/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

GA review on hold

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GA review (see here for criteria)
  1. It is reasonably well written.
    a (prose): b (MoS):
  2. It is factually accurate and verifiable.
    a (references): b (citations to reliable sources): c (OR):
  3. It is broad in its coverage.
    a (major aspects): b (focused):
  4. It follows the neutral point of view policy.
    a (fair representation): b (all significant views):
  5. It is stable.
  6. It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
    a (tagged and captioned): b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA): c (non-free images have fair use rationales):
  7. Overall:
    a Pass/Fail:

I've reorganised the article per WP:UKCITIES. I'm afraid there is a very significant problem with referencing in this article, there are too many uncited facts for this article to pass GA standards; I refrained from tagging each one with a {{fact}} template as there would be far too many, however if editors feel this would be helpful I will happily do it. This is not however the only issue, I will attempt to outline the problems.

  • The prehistoric and Roman history section is unreferenced.
  • The Saxon history section also needs more references, there are only two references given in a four paragraph section. WP:V states that "material challenged or likely to be challenged, and all quotations, must be attributed to a reliable, published source"
  • "The bury element is a form of borough, which has cognates in words and place names in virtually every Indo-European and Semitic language, as well as others. For a fuller explanation, see under borough." This is perhaps too much detail, I think a simple "Bury is an Old English word meaning 'stronghold' or 'fort'", with a source of course, would suffice.
  • What is an "archiepiscopal see"?
  • The Jewish community section has a {{fact}} tag which needs to be dealt with. Also the section seems a bit short, perhaps it should be integrated into a new 'Medieval history' section which would also address my concern of a lack of medieval history being mentioned, for example Thomas Becket is only mentioned in the lead and not the main body of the text.
  • It's frankly ridiculous to have a one sentence section.
  • Did the Industrial Revolution pass Canterbury by? There's no mention of it at all. Even if it had no effect, that's worth mentioning.
  • The post 1900 section is completely lacking in references.
  • The article is missing a governance section. WP:UKCITIES will give useful pointers on what should be included in one.
  • The demography and landmarks sections are woefully short, they would benefit from some expansion. I would recommend looking at WP:UKCITIES for ideas. But while we're on the point, lists are discouraged when they could be converted into prose or perhaps displayed as a table, and there is a lot more to demography than merely population change, such as ethnicity.
  • I'm personally fairly weak at writing geography sections, but I'm sure there's more to say about Canterbury than "it has a river". For example, what is it's position relative to local settlements. Again, I'm going to refer you to WP:UKCITIES.
  • The economy section seemed solid enough until I read "Tourism is currently worth £258 million to the Canterbury economy and has been a cornerstone of the local economy for a number of years. The district attracts over 6.3 million visitors per annum of which nearly 50% are from overseas". This appears word for word in the source and is a violation of copyright. I have reworded it slightly, but it concerns me that there may be other parts of the article have been copied. Although I do understand that it's not easy to rephrase something which is essentially reciting facts. Also "the district attracts".. this article is about the city not the district.
  • The transport section is again lacking in references, when controversial statements such "despite claims by the Stockton and Darlington Railway, the Canterbury and Whitstable was the first regular passenger steam railway in the world" are made they 'must be sourced. I also think there may be too much detail here, it should be a summary of the past, present, and future changes to the transport system in Canterbury.
  • "Canterbury is legendary for traffic congestion". Is it really? Source please.
  • "The city has many students", could this be quantified? Also the education section probably needs further sourcing.
  • The local radio section could benefit from removing the bullet points.
  • Some peacock terms are beginning to creep into the prose, for example "legendary shows". A neutral tone is encouraged. Also, acts such as The Clash, Led Zep, and Ozzy Osbourne probably need referencing. As does the rest of the culture section.
  • I'm not sure what the point of having a section on mills is. Either the mills themselves should be integrated into the landmarks section, or they could be worked into a new Industrial Revolution paragraph of the history section.
  • Everybody in the notable people section needs a reference.
  • I will reiterate again that this article is about the city not the district, so I have removed the towns listed as being twinned with the district.

I believe this article has perhaps been nominated prematurely, once the above issues are addressed I'm confident it can pass GA, however these are not small issues. I will put the article on hold for the period of a week in case an intrepid reviewer wants to put in the effort required. I'd also recommend asking User:Epbr123 to have a quick copy edit of the article, he's participated in promoting a lot of Kent related articles and is familiar with the requirements of GA. I'm sorry if this seems harsh, if you disagree with my opinions you can take the article to WP:GAR. Good luck. Nev1 (talk) 17:28, 26 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Many of the subsections under history are very short. I'd recommend combining some of these together; a separate subsection is not necessarily needed for each century, rather, see if you can combine these into distinct periods in the city's history (medieval, industrial, victorian, modern, etc). Lots of these subsections are very short, and in need of major expansion -- as-is, it's a serious issue with the completeness criterion of WP:WIAGA.
Promote the 'culture' section; there are other things (like transportation and education) that should come last, but culture is more important.
The way I see it, the article is a good, solid B-class, but quite far from GA at this point. Dr. Cash (talk) 17:03, 29 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Mills - The point of the mills section was to partly to show the growth of the city, and how it citizens were fed. A total of sixteen wind and watermills are known in the city since Domesday. The article doens't even mention the mills now, except as an afterthought at the end. Mention ought to be made of St Martin's Mill, which is one of only twenty eight windmills surviving in Kent. Mjroots (talk) 15:32, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

GA passed

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I'm delighted to say that I think this article passes the GA criteria. I'm astonished at the rate it's been expanded, it's been a fantastic effort by everyone involved. Nev1 (talk) 20:43, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wow! Quite impressive at the improvements! Good work! Though the economy section could still use a bit more expansion -- probably ok with GA, though, but something to work on,... Dr. Cash (talk) 21:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I'm utterly impressed! Credit to Epbr123 for his ingeniousness. Well done ——Ryan | t • c 23:26, 30 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Source

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I think this source may prove useful to anyone trying to expand the article. Nev1 (talk) 00:57, 28 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Train stations

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It seems that from the main article there's a train station missing: "Today, Canterbury has two railway stations, Canterbury West and Canterbury East...Canterbury West station...Canterbury East...A fourth station in Canterbury was Canterbury South." What's the third? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Hutchie6 (talk • contribs) 21:33, 13 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wondered about this too. But when you look in detail you see the sentence "The first station in Canterbury was at North Lane", which presumably justifies the claim about four stations. (Comment added by User:Eebkent) (My first contribution to a Talk page; apologies if this isn't in the right format.) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eebkent (talk • contribs) 11:52, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Indeed, and North Lane was the Canterbury terminus of the Canterbury and Whitstable Railway when it first opened GTD 13:46, 16 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

City vs town

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Canterbury has been a city since time immemorial, and there are numerous sources confirming this. This was due to the presence of the Cathedral. Whilst it did gain a city charter in the 15th century (1448, to be precise) this gave the city the right to a Mayor. It did not grant city status to Canterbury, as this was something the city had already had for centuries. :-) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.208.93.77 (talk) 13:28, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for bringing this to the talk page, it's easier to discuss here than in edit summaries. The presence of a cathedral doesn't make a city. And even if it did, there was no cathedral in the Roman period. At best, using your criteria, the city can only be called a city since the 7th century. Calling Roman Canterbury a city is anachronistic. Canterbury may have been a de facto city from the 7th century with its cathedral, but until it was granted the City Charter in 1448 it wasn't legally a city. Nev1 (talk) 13:36, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So what about all the cities in, what is now the UK, that where called cities before they received a city charter? Also, what about the Roman definition of a city, or anything else. I don't think going back and retroactively removing city from the article prior to charter is correct. Canterbury Tail talk 14:39, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding Roman cities, John Wacher in his book Roman Britain notes that terms such as civitas, vicus, and urbs (just three of the many terms used to describe Roman settlements) do not have easy modern equivalents; however, he also notes that the administrative structure associated with a civitas (which Canterbury was) is closest to that of a town. As for settlements called cities before they were granted charters, the cases should be dealt with on a case by case basis (who called it a city, is it reliable, is it notable?). Was Canterbury called a city just because of its cathedral before its charter? If so, I guess it's fair to call it one, with a caveat in the article that it was the charter that made it official. Nev1 (talk) 14:54, 17 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The Kentish Post

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A new edit states "The city's newspaper, the Kentish Post, was founded in 1717 as the country's second oldest newspaper[18]. It became known as the Kentish Gazette in 1768[19]."

This is not correct. The Kentish Post is the 28th recorded English newspaper (others may have failed to survive or are still to be discovered). See R. M. Wiles, Freshest advices : early provincial newspapers in England, Ohio State University Press, 1965. The error is due to a mis-reading of the page cited from the Kent Messenger web site which means (I think) that the current Kentish Gazette is the second oldest newspaper still publishing, as the successor to the Kentish Post.

It is definitely worth recording the start of the Kentish Post in 1717. I intend to modify the reference under "18th century–present" and move the KM references down to the section on "Newspapers". I hope to create a new Wikipedia page for the Kentish Post. Vidoue (talk) 11:15, 6 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Twin towns section

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On Oct 2, 212.34.125.4 edited this section so as to include Vladimir. In my view, this was incorrect. The whole set-up is quite complicated; there are different types of relationship between towns; twinning, groups of "sister cities" or similar, and towns and cities with "protocols d'accord" (whatever they are in this context!). In the case of Canterbury, there is also confusion because of relationships entered into on behalf of the entire local authority (LA) district City of Canterbury, or on behalf of parts of that local authority (in particular, what I'll call the "old city" of Canterbury).

Note that the Canterbury page has suffered from this confustion before. On 26 May 2008 Nev1 wrote: "I will reiterate again that this article is about the city not the district, so I have removed the towns listed as being twinned with the district".

In preparing suggested changes to this section, I've worked from the City Council webpages: http://www.canterbury.gov.uk/buildpage.php?id=2264 and http://www.canterbury.gov.uk/buildpage.php?id=1133, which offer reasonable (and verifiable) sources. Those pages suggest:

(i) the only city twinned with the "old city" of Canterbury is Reims;

(ii) Canterbury (whether the LA district or "old city", I don't know) has "protocols d'accord" with Tournai, Bergues, Saint Omer, Wimereux, Certaldo, Vladimir and Mohldal;

(iii) Canterbury (again, I don't know whether the "old city" or LA district) has a City to City partnership (whatever that is) with Esztergom;

(iv) the whole of the local authority district is linked through the Canterbury Three Cities Association (sometimes called the Three Towns Association) with Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, USA and Vladimir, Russia.

Unless anybody has clear information about (ii) and (iii), I suggest that these items should be omitted from all pages. Since (iv) relates to the LA district, I suggest that Vladimir should be removed from the Canterbury page and entered on the City of Canterbury page. Eebkent (talk) 14:39, 6 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]


Since when has Canterbury been twinned with: Bloomington-Normal, United States, as this article states? I have never heard of this twinning, perhaps I am deaf? This should be backed up with references if it is true, otherwise it should be deleted.151.230.133.20 (talk) 12:08, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I couldn't find any references for this twinning, so I've removed it. -- Marek.69 talk 18:45, 24 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguation

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In much the same vein as above, I have made a proposal at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_England#City_disambiguation that (I believe) outlines a sound rationale for some effective alterations to how we deal with cities and places within cities that share its name. I'm really hoping to gain a broad consensus for this proposal, so comments at WP:ENGLAND are welcome. --Jza84 |  Talk  11:04, 9 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Music section

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On 13 December 2009 19:38, SmackEater interchanged the order of entries in the music section to give pride of place to the "Canterbury Scene", justifying this on the grounds that the "Canterbury Scene is the most important musical contribution of Canterbury". I feel that this is inappropriate, and would far prefer DavidShaw's previous ordering. I don't see the Canterbury Scene as anything like as important as SmackEater claims; I have lived in the city since the early 1970s, and hadn't heard of it at all until there was a small splurge of publicity a few months ago. The Wikipedia page on it is hardly encouraging, commenting that there "is debate about the existence and definition of the [Canterbury] scene", and quoting views that it is wrong to associate it with Canterbury. Given all this, I don't think an encyclopedia really ought to do more than give it a passing mention on the [Canterbury] page.

I don't want to start an "editor war", so I haven't simply undone SmackEater's change. I'm happy to leave this open for debate, but unless I see more cogent support for keeping the present ordering I propose to undo that change in a few days.

I'm not best placed to write a comprehensive section on Canterbury music, but I'm sure that there's much that could be added. As for "the most important musical contribution of Canterbury", surely that is the centuries-old continuing musical excellence in the Cathedral. People who know more about all the music performed by staff and students in the universities could also be encouraged to contribute paragraphs. Finally, the current section gives lists of pop groups which have played (once?) in various locations in the city. If that sort of thing is to be included at all , should the section not also include lists of companies which visit to perform operas, symphony concerts, chamber recitals, etc, throughout the year and of course during the annual Festival? Eebkent (talk) 17:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I altered the ordering of music section after DavidShaw added small sections mentioning the Choral society and Orchestra to the top of it in a new edit. I moved them to the bottom of the music section as they are not as notable as the Canterbury scene. A google search for "Canterbury Choral Society" reveals 5,700 results, whilst a search for "Canterbury Orchestra" reveals only 1,450. A search for "Canterbury Scene" yields 78,000 results, the first page of which includes sections on the BBC[1] and All Music Guide, whilst the searches for the other group are mostly tourist links and adverts for their CDs. To me at least, the fact that the BBC have a section on their website about the Canterbury Scene makes it a more notable part of the Canterbury music than a couple of music groups.
It doesn't matter that there is some debate about the Canterbury Scene - people associate it with Canterbury, and it is more notable than the choral society or orchestra, so it should be the most important section of the Canterbury music article as it stands. Just because some locals haven't heard of it, does not make it non-notable. I've lived in Canterbury too, and never heard of the Canterbury Orchestra or Choral Society. I was sure there would be one of each for the Cathedral at least, but didn't know the names. This doesn't make them non-notable, either. (Although I'm unsure that the Orchestra is notable? Most towns & cities have one, and it doesn't seem to be too major according to the first few pages of links on the web)
I have also discussed this with DavidShaw - luckily he is writing a comprehensive section on the history of music in Canterbury from the 16th - 19th Century. When he thinks this is ready, he's going to add it. I suggest that the music section should be reordered so that it has the notable music of Canterbury in historical order (i.e. 16-19th Century, Canterbury Scene, notable recent groups).
My summary referred to the current sections of the article - not Canterbury's total contribution to the music - it was a brief summary.
I agree on the list of popular bands that have played in Canterbury - this probably should be excised as it is just a list of bands that have played there. SmackEater (talk) 09:13, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The doubt about the Canterbury Scene is not as to whether it is a popular topic on the internet but whether it currently has much connection with Canterbury apart from its name.
However, it did once have a Canterbury root and so deserves a place in the Music section. I have made progress with the reorganisation and expansion of the Music section - see User talk:DavidShaw/Sandbox/Canterbury - Music.
Would you both please let me know what you think? If OK, I will copy it to the Canterbury page. Is it too long??? Vidoue (talk) 22:45, 19 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think SmackEater and I will have to agree to disagree on the weight to be given to the "Canterbury Scene", but in view of DavidShaw's scholarly replacement of the whole section I don't think the disagreement matters any more.
David asks about length. The enlarged section will lead to some imbalance, in that (for example) there's virtually nothing in the article about visual arts. But I don't see this as a reason for cutting an interesting music section; it might stimulate others to include useful material on their interests.
I have just a few very minor suggestions for changes, mainly to the "Contemporary" subsection of David's draft.
- Para 2. I think SmackEater and I would be happy for this to disappear.
- Para 3. I suggest a brief mention of other groups; perhaps along the lines: "Other musical groups include the Canterbury Singers (also founded in 1953) and the City of Canterbury Chamber Choir."
- In the Composers section, suggest add a bullet point along the lines "Alan Ridout (1934-1996) educator and broadcaster, composer of church, orchestral and chamber music"
- A few more wikilinks (e.g. polyphony|polyphonic would be useful - but these can easily be left for others to supply later! Eebkent (talk) 21:52, 20 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've moved the new stuff to the Canterbury page. The Ridout suggestion was the one I had been trying to remember -- thanks. I've left in the 1980s groups listed -- someone else can edit them out if they think it is necessary.
Thanks to both SmackEater and Eebkent for input on this topic. Vidoue (talk) 17:30, 21 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I have limited detail on music related to the Cathedral / UKC / Marlowe / Odeon. That material has not gone but been used to reinforce the music content of those venues own Wikipedia pages. Ed1964 (talk) 17:04, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Gandhi's visit

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On 14 Feb 2010, Bill321 (I think) wrote: Was the cathedral really damaged by a "lighting storm" or is that a typo? --Bill321 —Preceding undated comment added 16:41, 14 February 2010 (UTC).[reply]

Presumably a typo, and I'll change it in due course. But I see that the sentence being discussed was:

One of Canterbury's other more famous visitors was Gandhi, who famously helped rebuild part of the cathedral after damage cause by fire as a result of a lighting storm.

I'm not convinced that Gandhi "famously helped rebuild" the cathedral. I hadn't heard that story myself, and the only references I can find on the web simply copy the Wiki article. Gandhi certainly visited Canterbury; there's a photo in: http://library.kent.ac.uk/library/special/html/specoll/GANDHI.HTM and a chronology in: http://www.wikilivres.info/wiki/Chronology_of_Mahatma_Gandhi's_life/England_1931 which seem to prove that he visited on Oct 4/5 1931. So that bit is verifiable.

If anybody can verify the "famous story", could they please edit a reference into the article? If I don't hear anything, I'll keep the reference to the visit but remove any mention of rebuilding on grounds of absence of verifiability.Eebkent (talk) 17:46, 21 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Changes suggested above now implemented. Eebkent (talk) 21:48, 10 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

"Canterbury" should default to disambigution page.

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While I don't doubt that this is the original Canterbury, I think typing "canterbury" into the wikipedia search engine should default to the disambiguation page. I'd never heard of Canterbury in England until now. Canterbury in New Zealand covers hundreds of time the area of Canterbury in England and has three times the population, so why should the word "canterbury" immediately default to canterbury in England. 121.73.7.84 (talk) 09:39, 30 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'd never heard of Canterbury in England until now. So what - just because you may be bloody-ignorant doesn't mean everyone else is. So know you've heard of it and just about everywhere else named Canterbury is named after this place.
... and I bet there are more Anglicans around the world who have heard of this Canterbury than there are people in your Canterbury. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.112.55.169 (talk) 20:38, 27 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

What the above editor asked back in August 2010 is whether this page really is the primary topic. I wondered about that, too, and have put this article name into the Wikipedia article traffic statistics tool and see that there are between 600 to 1000 views of this page per day, or 24,381 in July 2012. So how does that compare to other pages? That's one of the ways one can use to find out whether there is a primary topic. Here are the results, sorted by page views:

page July 2012 views
Canterbury Cathedral 15392
University of Canterbury 5968
Canterbury Region 4070
Canterbury Christ Church University 3246
City of Canterbury 2084
Province of Canterbury 1445
Canterbury, Victoria 1373
total 33578

That's of course only some of the pages listed on the dab page; there are lots more that produce monthly page views of under 1000. Based on this, is anybody keen to look into a formal move request that would swap this page with the dab page? Schwede66 19:36, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The purpose of an encyclopaedia is to educate people, not to pander to their misconceptions or their ignorance. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.149.247.9 (talk) 09:48, 9 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Talking newspaper

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This wasn't my post, but I don't see why the talking newspaper shouldn't have a mention and a link. 100 swubscribers isn't at all bad for a specialist activity of this sort. I would suggest reducing the original posting

A talking newspaper for the visually impaired is a registered charity and run by volunteers who serve as readers and editors. The "Canterbury and District Recorder" [[1]] is recorded every Friday afternoon and memory sticks (which have taken over from the old cassettes) are duplicated and mailed out late on Friday afternoon. At present the Recorder has some 100 listeners.

to a shorter

The Canterbury and District Recorder is a weekly talking newspaper for the visually impaired, distributed on memory sticks, It is a registered charity run by volunteers who serve as readers and editors.

Vidoue (talk) 20:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/entertainment/canterbury_scene/
To prove it's notable it would really need reliable third party references. Mere existence isn't sufficient. Canterbury Tail talk 12:59, 27 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Historic

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Okay, this is getting silly. There are several of us involved in changes back and forth over the simple little thing of "a historic" as opposed to "an historic." A historic is more common in form for British English (in my opinion), which is the language the article is written in. I don't see anything in the MOS of ENGVAR to allow for very localized usage taking over the language of an article, though I may have missed something. Also, in my experience alone, an historic when used is used in speech, not in writing. So lets see if we can have a discussion over this, and no more editing by any party until it's resolved. BRD remember and it's been through several iterations without the D. Canterbury Tail talk 12:36, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm with Canterbury Tail on this one. While "an" can't really be regarded as wrong, "a" seems to be found much more frequently, especially in written English. The Guardian Style Guide (http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide) specifies "a". There's also the question of consistency within Wikipedia; a very quick check shows that "a" is used in Winchester, Isle of Ely and Exeter, and so far I haven't found any use of "an" in pages on UK towns and cities. Eebkent (talk) 16:01, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you both - an historic is a throwback to when historic was commonly pronounced "istoric" rather than "historic" as it is today. Oxford SmackEater (talk) 16:28, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Agree it should be "a historic", rather than "an historic". Mjroots (talk) 17:27, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
(1) Both are correct according to WP, and according to UK, Australian and US usage. (2) My original motive for undoing edits was that someone was on a crusade to change all the instances of "an historic" on Wiki to "a historic" on the basis of opinion only, and for some reason was writing offensive material in the edit summaries (not the usernames above, I hasten to add). (3) I don't mind what result is decided by consensus, but I would like to point out that while this is being discussed, someone does appear to have continued to edit "an historic" back to "a historic" in this article.--Storye book (talk) 19:00, 22 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]
IIRC both usages are OK for 'historic' - the confusion arises because of the widespread practice of dropping one's aitches ("H"'s), i.e., not pronouncing the 'H' at the beginning of words, e.g., "ello", "ow are you", "I'm 'aving an 'orrible time", etc.
Basically one uses an 'an' in front of a word that is difficult to say if an 'a' is used, e.g., "a ironic statement", "he's a idiot". The 'n' in the 'an' makes the sentence flow better when spoken and makes it easier to say. Just say the sentence out loud twice using both 'a' and 'an' and if it sounds better and trips off the tongue better with one then that's generally the one to use. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 13:30, 17 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wantsum Channel

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Canterbury was a prosperous medieval seaport on the western side of the Wantsum Channel. On the eastern side of the Wantsum Channel was the original Isle of Thanet. Is there any reason for not mentioning this?AT Kunene (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Canterbury was never a seaport, the channel separating the Isle of Thanet from the rest of Kent was many miles from Canterbury. Canterbury Tail talk 22:29, 13 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure about the distance of Canterbury from the Wantsum channel? Most of the online maps of Roman Canterbury seem to show this town quite clearly as a seaport town and there is some reference in modern history books mentioniong Canterbury as "a prosperous seaport town".AT Kunene (talk) 18:48, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Are you sure about the distance of Canterbury from the sea? The online maps of Roman Britain seem to clearly show Canterbury as a seaport town and ther are modern history book references to Canterbury as a "prosperous medieval town".AT Kunene (talk) 19:01, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide a source. Canterbury is on a river, the Stour, and always has been, but I've never seen anything from it being on the sea. I lived in Canterbury 14 years and used to work in Thanet and the channel was quite some distance from Canterbury. Can you provide references?
There are plenty of references to the western side having a ferry at Sarre, which is about 8 miles east of Canterbury. Also the article on the Isle of Thanet clearly shows maps with the Wantsum river/channel a considerable distance from Durovernum. Even the article on Wantsum Channel is clear that it isn't near Canterbury. While Canterbury did receive shipping, it was via the Stour not direct as a seaport. Canterbury Tail talk 20:44, 22 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with Canterbury Tail. I attended a grammar school at Canterbury, where I was taught that the Cinque Ports were the ports feeding Canterbury. It is possible that small river barges could travel up the Stour as far as Canterbury, but they would have to be small as medieval buildings were built along both sides of this very narrow river, showing that it has always been narrow. Therefore Canterbury could not have been a seaport. --Storye book (talk) 14:46, 23 March 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Old English Spelling of Canterbury?

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According to the map in the inside cover of Bright's Old English , Canterbury is spelled as "Cantuareburg." The map has Anglo-Saxon spellings of major cities and regions mentioned in literature. However, it is stated at the start of the wiki article that it is spelled as "Cantwareburh." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.247.152.4 (talk) 21:16, 6 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Confused?

Spellings were inconsistent back in those times simply because very few could read and write. So the scribes and monks who were doing the writing sometimes heard place names which were unfamiliar to them, and they then had to work out a spelling which approximated to the name they had heard. Different monks and scribes could spell the same name differently. So variations in spelling are bound to occur. In addition, after the Norman Conquest the normal language of the rulers was Norman French and so at the time of the Domesday Book (which is an excellent source of major and minor place names for the contemporary historian) the people writing down the place names for taxation purposes may not have been familiar with the foreign-sounding Anglo-Saxon place names anyway.
Often the different spellings can be a good guide to the original pronunciation of a place name, and sometimes explain the seeming illogical relationship between how a place name or word is spelt, and how it is a actually spoken. So "Cantuareburg" and ""Cantwareburh" would be two different person's ways of spelling the same name - if you use slightly different spelling rules you can see that they are pronounced the same - Kant-were-burrh. Say it quickly, and allow for people's accumulated laziness in pronunciation over several hundred years, and you get Kanter-bury - or if you are a Kent local; Kanter-bree. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 13:08, 17 July 2012‎ (UTC)[reply]

Requested move

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The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. --BDD (talk) 16:57, 26 September 2012 (UTC) (non-admin closure)[reply]

– As per the rationale above, I question whether this page could be regarded as the primary topic. There might be other disambiguators possible for this article. Schwede66 21:14, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

gates

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The article mentions 7 gates, but not all the names of the gates are entered. I'm looking through my father's old slides & he has a gate name that is illegible. I would like to find a complte list here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aebarschall (talk • contribs) 03:46, 10 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Climate

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This page has no climate and weather section, which is unusual for the page of a significant place. Fig (talk) 14:22, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't really need it, the climate section of the Kent article is sufficient. Canterbury doesn't get any different weather to the rest of the county (apart from that two week period about 7 years ago when the east of the county got snow storms and the west was fine on and off.) Canterbury Tail talk 22:33, 30 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Would be best to add a link to that then? Fig (talk) 13:55, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Sure that could work. I don't have a better idea. Canterbury Tail talk 14:43, 1 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Theatre is a mess

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We don't need to mention the Marlowe twice, it's not an advert. If the theatre in St Margarets Street the original Marlowe? I suppose the current Marlowe was the same business as the converted Marlowe? Maybe name other theatres? Penny Theatre? Marlowe Arena? And so on. Slightnostalgia (talk) 18:09, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

What, still a mess? I blame Window Twanky. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:23, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Tidied it up a bit with a framework for others to add further new material. Ed1964 (talk) 18:44, 1 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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these links are not useful --188.221.224.31 (talk) 18:56, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

You look like a sockpuppet of banned User:Weathereditor. So maybe we should revert all your edits here? Martinevans123 (talk) 22:35, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
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Assessment comment

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The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Canterbury/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)Press [show] to view →
* — New "Geography" section, that would also include info on geology & landscape, climate, etc.
  • — New Culture section could include subsections Tourism, Sports, Arts, Architecture etc and incorporate Education
  • — Is mode of transport the best way to order a transport section? Consider whether it would work better rewritten as a paragraph or two each on local and (inter)national transport
  • — An economy section could including statistics such as GDP and unemployment, and info on industries and major employers
  • — One or two short sentences does not make a good section, either expand or merge sections
  • — Prose is better than lists
  • — Photographs will improve an article
  • — Reference any detail (see Wikipedia:WikiProject Kent/Citing sources)

Key

  • — Done
  • — Not done
  • — In progress

Last edited at 12:02, 25 May 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 10:49, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

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WWII Civilian War Deaths

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I have deleted the 115 killed cited to Margaret Lyle's book Canterbury: 2000 years of History and replaced the figure with the higher one (119) based on the CWGC's casualty list of civilian deaths through enemy action within Canterbury County Borough. All the CWGC listed deaths occurred within hostilities and does not include any who may have died of effects of injury after hostilities ceased in 1945.Cloptonson (talk) 18:36, 23 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The article presents a sanitised version of the end of Roman Canterbury.

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According to the article Roman Canterbury was "abandoned" and "gradually decayed", then "Jutish refugees" arrived and possibly "intermarried with the locals". In reality Germanic mercenaries were first housed outside the Roman town, but they revolted - burned the Roman town and took over the area. The ash layer of the burning is there, as are the post holes of the Germanic huts put into the ruins of Roman buildings. History is a violent (brutal) thing - it should presented as it was, not whitewashed.2A02:C7E:1CC3:8A00:CCEF:72E4:1F34:184B (talk) 10:48, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome to make changes as long as you're providing reliable sources along the way. Canterbury Tail talk 12:23, 8 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Poverty

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Canterbury Tail the material added in the edit [2] may have a basis in [3]. I am not sure whether that could be considered as a reliable published source as I did not find the publisher. The text does not look good using the term 'than many realise' and refering to underfunded individuals. I hope that helps.SovalValtos (talk) 08:15, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for this. Reading through that document and seeing the references and details on the authors, it seems it could be considered reliable. I think the edit needs to be reworked though along with the reference for it. The text of the edit is a bit undue, but the overall point seems valid and sourced. Canterbury Tail talk 08:23, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks to both of you. I will rework the text and add some more references too. Then see what you think. Balance person (talk) 08:39, 7 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA Reassessment

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Canterbury

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The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • Most recent review
Result: With thanks to the editors who worked to improve the article, kept. ~~ AirshipJungleman29 (talk) 20:34, 21 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

GA from 2008. Article suffers from uncited statements, outdated statements, one sentence paragraphs, and some sections that could probably be expanded. Onegreatjoke (talk) 01:28, 8 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Keep: I've fixed the uncited claims by adding refs and removing text as necessary. Some outdated claims have been removed. Very short paragraphs and sections have been merged. On the "could probably be expanded", well, yes, that's usually true everywhere, but the criterion for GA is "covers the main points", and there can be no doubt that this article does that. If there are specific issues remaining, I'll be happy to address them. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:04, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The broadness question is interesting, it's true the article doesn't have to be comprehensive, but there does seem to be large untouched gaps. There is a Geography section, but it says nothing on urban geography (aside from a tantalising picture of city walls). I don't know quite what is happening in Governance, but it's briefness seems to leave it jumping between topics with no clear structure (speaking of structures, "After it was declared redundant and de-consecrated" presumably refers to some church structure, but it's not apparent in the article). There's a demographics section, but it's so sparse as to not even mention the "substantial student population" seen as important enough for the lead. The lead itself could use expansion, although here to better capture what is in the article rather than what is missing. CMD (talk) 08:10, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Urban geography: added paragraph, refs.
  • Governance: Named the missing building, added refs.
  • Lead: Edited the lead slightly. It seems a fair summary of the contents.
  • For leads, I look to see whether topics deemed important enough to have their own section are mentioned. I don't think this is fully there, but the edits were an improvement. The new urban geography paragraph is great. CMD (talk) 15:19, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • Added a little more. I'm really not going to add that the city has a bus station to the lead: every city has one of those, so the wooden "section = mention" equation won't do. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:10, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I don't believe I've promoted it as a wooden equation, but happy to step away from this. As a final note I found a direct piece of copying from a 2008 access date, and feel the lead mention of the UNESCO status should be something worth exploring in the body. CMD (talk) 16:20, 16 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Editing for GA Reassessment as above

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GarryHenderson6, and anyone else whom this may concern, I'm attempting to rescue this article which is currently under the cosh at GAR. This means that the article must be free of all major problems, which include especially uncited claims. The choice is to remove the materials, or to find sources. It is generally difficult to source old claims made in the spirit of WP:OR as these will have been inserted without sources in the first place. Usually the best thing to do is to remove what is not cited, and to look for basic facts that are reliably cited (using WP:RS), adding those in place of the old uncited materials. Obviously I can't do this if my edits are being reverted for whatever reason. The effect of restoring an old uncited claim is to put the article back into the unsustainable position that caused it to be brought to GAR in the first place. I'd be really grateful if you could assist me in my work (such as by finding sources); or at least, allow me to proceed with the rescue. If there's anything else you want explained, do feel free to ask. All the best, Chiswick Chap (talk) 09:35, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly surprised to get no reply, but gratified to see that the reversions have ceased, so it seems we can proceed normally now. There is plenty of scope for reliably cited materials to be added, but the immediate need is simply to have a "clean" and stable article for the assessment. Many thanks everyone. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:01, 10 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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