Beyond the cathedral, Canterbury keeps a working art scene: a free civic gallery holding 400 Thomas Sidney Cooper paintings, Marlowe's birthplace turned creative venue, a producing theatre on the Stour, and Roman mosaics under the pavement.
The city's free art museum, in a mock-Tudor building of 1899 on the High Street, holds works by Thomas Sidney Cooper, Canterbury's cattle painter, plus Van Dyck and Sickert. Open Mon–Sat 09:00–17:00, Sun 10:00–17:00.
Canterbury Christ Church University runs this contemporary space inside the 1868 art school that Thomas Sidney Cooper built and gave to his home city. Four or five shows a year of painting, print and installation; open Tue–Sat 11:00–17:00.
Founded in 598 by the missionary who brought Christianity to the English, these ruins are the third element of Canterbury's UNESCO site and the least crowded. English Heritage runs the site museum; the audio guide is included in the ticket.
Riverside gardens along the Great Stour with a 200-year-old Oriental plane, a surviving 14th-century wall bastion and the Tower House. Free and open until dusk; the Kentish ragstone stretch here is the finest architectural walk in the city.
Built around an in-situ Roman mosaic floor uncovered by a WWII bomb crater in Butchery Lane, the museum sits below today's street level among the ruins of Durovernum Cantiacorum. Hands-on armour, glass and pottery; open daily 10:00–17:00.
The medieval Poor Priests' Hospital on Stour Street reopened in 2023 as a heritage and creative venue named for Christopher Marlowe, baptised in Canterbury in 1564. Free displays on his life, a timber-roofed hall and a café in the undercroft.
Britain's largest regional masonic collection sits in St Peter's Place: ceremonial jewels, embroidered aprons, engraved glass and ritual objects from the 1730s onward, alongside the archive of every Kent lodge. Open Tue–Fri 10:00–16:00.
Kent's main producing house, rebuilt in 2011 with a 1,200-seat auditorium overlooking the Stour, programmes touring drama, Glyndebourne on tour, and dance. The Marlowe Studio next door runs new writing, spoken word and comedy.
Britain's first permanent farmers' market fills a restored 1846 railway shed beside Canterbury West station: Kentish cheese, Romney Marsh lamb, cobnuts and a wood-fired bakery. Open Tue–Sat 09:00–19:00, Sun until 16:00.
Palace Street, Sun Street and Northgate form Canterbury's independent quarter: Catching Lives Bookshop in the visibly leaning 1617 house at No. 28, Kentish makers' studios, and The Parrot, a 1370 inn standing on Roman foundations.
The Roper vault here holds the head of Sir Thomas More, brought home by his daughter Margaret Roper after his execution in 1535. Henry II began his barefoot penance walk to Becket's shrine from this porch in 1174. Open most afternoons.
Canterbury Brewers & Distillers make their beer and gin in the same room where you drink them, inside a Victorian iron foundry off White Horse Lane. A dozen house lines on the bar, plus small-batch gin distilled behind the counter.