Canterbury

A Frankish princess who became queen of Kent. A former Roman church just outside Canterbury was restored for her, and today's St Martin's Church stands on the same site. She enabled Augustine's mission of 597, which led to Anglo-Saxon England becoming Christian.

Born in Normandy, she married King Æthelred the Unready at Canterbury Cathedral in spring 1002 and was consecrated 'Queen Ælfgifu'.

In the 1360s she funded the building of the 'Countess's Chapel', usually called St Anne's Chapel, on the side of St Augustine's Abbey.

In about 1430, the apse of the cathedral's south transept was removed to make way for a chapel she founded, dedicated to St Michael and All Angels.

In September 1573 the queen visited Canterbury and stayed at her palace of St Augustine's.

The widow of Lord Wootton, she lived in the palace at St Augustine's until her death in 1658. The small square facing the abbey gate has been known as Lady Wootton's Green since the reign of Charles I.

A playwright, poet and translator, and one of the first English women to earn her living by her writing. Nobody is sure where she was born: one man who knew her as a child said 'Sturry or Canterbury'.

The artist who created the comic strip Rupert Bear. She was born on Palace Street in Canterbury, studied art in the city and is buried at St Martin's Church.

A visual artist who works mainly in film, nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998. She was born in Canterbury.

A Paralympic alpine skier who raced with a sighted guide. At 15 she was the youngest person ever to compete for ParalympicsGB at the Winter Games. She was born in Canterbury.

In 2015, Sarah Mullally and Rachel Treweek became the first women to be ordained as bishops in Canterbury Cathedral.

In 2018, the Thomas Becket Miracle Windows project, led by Léonie Seliger and Dr Rachel Koopmans, analysed and conserved the eight 12th-century windows in the Trinity Chapel.