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Quiz trail books for Rochester, Canterbury, Faversham and Sevenoaks

A history buff has created 20 different interactive educational booklets to help people find out more about their home towns.

Liz Foster began with just one trail for her home town of Rochester. She was fascinated with the area's extensive past and wanted to make a booklet of everything she had discovered.

She said: "If you just said to somebody, 'there's a history booklet', it's not particularly interesting on its own and there are lots of books out there that are very in-depth about areas.

"So I thought if we make it a fun trail with questions along the way, it makes it more engaging and you might learn a bit more about the places."

In March 2020, when the country went into lockdown, Liz started researching the deep history of other locations across Kent and has now made a total of 20 different quiz trails.

The collection has even expanded into Surrey and East Sussex.

Liz hoped that the clear and easy-to-follow trails would encourage people to: "Look up, look down, look across, to things you might just have walked past, because we all usually walk just looking straight ahead."

Liz Foster with her daughters Becca and Laura, who helped with the quiz trails
Liz Foster with her daughters Becca and Laura, who helped with the quiz trails

She said: "When my children were small, we'd go out and visit places but we didn't really learn anything at all about the place we'd just been and the history of it.

"I know my children were never very keen on just following me around because I used to go and look at all the historic buildings, so this is a great way of engaging children."

Liz enlisted the help of her grown-up daughters, Becca and Laura, to help with videos, artwork and graphic design. Her friend Petrina Banfield has also helped out by writing the booklets based in Surrey.

At the end of each booklet is a page to fill out the answers to the questions along the route, and those who complete the quiz can enter into a yearly cash prize draw of £100 for adults and £50 for children.

Liz said: "It's not just for families, it's made for adults too so you don't need children with you to enjoy it. We're finding lots of retired people are enjoying going out and exploring."

A selection of the quiz trails available to buy
A selection of the quiz trails available to buy

The trails are all between one and two miles, and take between one and two hours to complete.

The booklets, named "quiz trails", feature a wheelchair accessible circular route around different locations.

They contain historical facts about the area and quiz questions about notable points along the route that are suitable for adults and children.

The booklets can be purchased on the quiz trail website or picked up in various stores around each location. They cost between £4 and £5.99.

Some of her already published trails include Canterbury, Faversham and Sevenoaks, with more in the pipeline.

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