Canterbury DCNN53CB – A very long term record holder, novel instrumentation, an exceptional summer and a discussion on the Met Office as the sole keeper of the keys.

51.279675, 1.07965 No Known CIMO Assessment. Operational from at least 1868 to 1944 but no digital records currently.

Canterbury is famous for its cathedral and its Archbishop being the head of the Church of England. A very historic city with several claims to fame it is also notably small and compact. There used to be a weather station in Canterbury but for quite unusual reasons the Met Office does not seem to want to overly publicise its former existence and even almost disown its record breaking past. This is a Canterbury Tale of novel instrumentation, a long term record and questions the Met Office’s authority to control historic records.

For full disclosure I have lived all my adult life either within, or near to, Canterbury – over 52 years. I know the area extremely well indeed. Despite my local knowledge I have struggled, for over 3 years of trying, to actually locate the former weather station site and only eventually came across it by the most roundabout of routes. This difficulty in finding the site becomes more unusual in that Canterbury jointly held the UK all time highest temperature (with Raunds, Northamption) at 36.7 °C from 9/8/1911 being only somewhat dubiously broken 79 years later at Cheltenham on 3/8/1990. It is also worth noting that both Epsom and the Greenwich Observatory recorded higher temperatures in that incredibly hot 1911 summer but those have been expunged on the grounds of the type of screen used – more on this later.

So why the difficulty in locating a record breaking site? Well firstly, the Met Office simply does not list it in the CEDA archives. It struck me that Canterbury must have been a small, amateur, almost irrelevant site considered barely worth recording from such treatment. Far from it proved to be the case.

Leaving aside the Australian site and the nearby coastal town of Herne Bay, the other 3 above sites have never recorded temperature being only Rain Gauge Sites. I delved into the manual records but, whilst I could find lots of copies of manuscripts, the only coordinnates supplied were inadequate to pinpoint the site. Even latter records which normally include reference points for visibility evaluation were frustratingly not completed. Checking with local meteorologists drew blanks.

The given coordinates of 51°17′ N, 1°5′ E are consistent throughout all the records but are far too vague to ascertain the exact site and only indicate the general area of central Canterbury. I checked every single year in both the Royal Meteorological Society records as well as the Met Office’s but could not get any further clarity. At one point in desperation I asked AI (Grok, ChatGPT and Google Gemini) with all of them unable to offer further guidance other than for me to personally visit the main Canterbury archive centres at both the Cathedral (for Church records) or more likely the “Beaney Institute” at the library in central Canterbury. I tried multiple other angles (newspaper reports etc) to no avail and resolved to have to wade through whatever the Beaney Institute had to offer – likely a very long process.

One last aspect that came to mind was that I had noted decades worth of the records were signed by the same observer, a certain “A Lander” plus one obscure address reference to “Canterbury Medical Hall”. Was searching for this person worth trying? A long shot that supplied all the answers and a surprising amount more.

Arthur Lander transpired to be a very significant figure in the meteorological community. Lander was not only a noted meteorologist, he was also a photographer of note and, perhaps most relevantly, a Pharmacist and “Druggist” who owned “Canterbury Medical Hall” in central Canterbury. I fed this additional information into AI which suddenly opted to become the font of all knowledge!

“Arthur Lander exhibited a thermograph (along with his sunshine recorder and anemometer) as part of his self-recording meteorological instruments.

Details from Historical Records

• In 1903 (reported in Nature, Vol. 69), at a British Association meeting focused on astronomy and meteorology, A. Lander of Canterbury displayed his new pattern photographic sunshine recorder, an anemometer, and a thermograph. These were self-recording devices, consistent with the era’s push for continuous, automatic or semi-automatic observations by voluntary observers.
• Lander was actively involved in instrument design and modification (e.g., his Dawson-Lander sunshine recorder and improved rain gauge with Lander & Smith). The thermograph fits this pattern as a self-recording temperature instrument, likely a mechanical type common at the time (such as bimetallic or Bourdon-tube mechanisms driving a pen on a rotating drum/chart).

Use at the Weather Station (DCNN53CB)

Specific technical diagrams or full descriptions of Lander’s exact thermograph model are scarce in readily available online sources, but it is highly likely it was used at his Canterbury station on the Medical Hall premises:

• As the named voluntary observer (A. Lander) for the Met Office climatological station, he provided temperature data (including max/min and grass minimum). Self-recording instruments like thermographs were standard for dedicated observers to capture continuous traces, reducing manual reading errors and providing detailed diurnal curves.
• Contemporary accounts group the thermograph with his other station equipment (e.g., anemometer mounted on iron tubing above the roof). His scientific society involvement and instrument-making activities (noted in Nature 1908) further support that he equipped his own observing site with these tools.

No evidence suggests the thermograph was purely experimental or unrelated to his regular observations. It would have complemented manual thermometers for the station’s returns.“

Despite my original view that the Canterbury site might be a minor incidental unit, it transpires it was at the cutting edge of technology and potentially an automatic unit well ahead of its time. Is this why the Met Office treated it so warily? And why is this 1911 reading considered so dubious that archives note it as “questionable” like this below.

Note: The 1911 Canterbury record is asterisked whilst the 1990 Cheltenham record is not.

This 1911 record was also no rare occurrence. Psychology Professor Trevor Harley is also a recognised meteorologist who produces useful data on his website including the hottest day of the year for each year since 1875. Canterbury appeared 3 times in the 44 years of its 20 century lifespan.

So who is it exactly that questions these sorts of records in the past, and why, and under whose authority are they the ultimate arbiter? The Met Office of course.

The Met Office seemed to find it perfectly reasonable to expunge “ Fellow of the Royal society, a medical doctor and highly respected Meteorological Observer, Dr George Hunsley Fielding” and his 1868 Tonbridge record over 100 years after it was recorded. Their reasoning, after a century of thought, was that Glaisher Stands over recorded readings if not rotated during the day to avoid direct sunlight hitting the sensor. But Dr Fielding was present all that day and very well versed in its operation as a meteorological expert. Nobody, during his lifetime, would have dared to suggest he was wrong! Yet despite this, the Met Office were perfectly prepared to accept wildly out of kilter readings at Faversham in 2003 in the face of Grandees at the Royal Meteorological Society openly providing evidence it was unquestionably wrong AND that KEW Gardens did not even meet the most basic standards.

The 1911 record at Canterbury would almost certainly have been deleted (with Arthur Lander’s additional sophisticated equipment despite his long term expertise) were it not for it actually being taken in a Stevenson Screen and conforming to the Raunds site. In fact it is probable that had it not been for the Canterbury site’s conformity, the Raunds reading would have been subsequently discarded as “inconvenient” standing on its own as an “outlier”. The Epsom and Greenwich readings were obviously beyond the pale from the equipment deemed inaccurate regardless of the observer’s competence i.e a professional in the case of Greenwich. However, all the known problems with Stevenson Screens over-recording in still air and high sunshine levels are conveniently overlooked even when the WMO specifies artificial (fanned) ventilation for accuracy of readings – the Met Office have no such screens.

As reported earlier, the 1911 incredibly intense summer (leading to severe industrial unrest) set records in multiple sites using conventional equipment. However, the 1990 Cheltenham record was accepted in a sheltered public park with no site security nor enclosure and regular events taking place PLUS it significantly varied from its surrounding stations. All the Met Office weather stations recording temperatures in 1990 appear on this CEDA interactive map.

Checking the officially recorded temperatures for those stations operating at the time

Cheltenham 37.1°C, Cirencester 35°C Didbrook Fields 35°C Pershore College 34.7°C Ross-on-Wye 34.5°C Little Rissington 34.5°C Slimbridge 34.5°C Randwick 34°C

None of the 7 surrounding stations got within 2°C of Cheltenham that day from proven archived readings BUT the modern day keepers of the records (the Met Office) saw fit to ratify Cheltenham contradicting their own stipulations..

Fast forwarding to the next national record high was the aforementioned Faversham 2003 disputed by internationally renowned experts and thence to Cambridge University Garden in 2019 officially rated as “2.6 Class 5 (additional estimated uncertainty added by siting up to 5 °C)“

And then to 2022 alongside the taxiway at RAF Conningsby we have this – readings are supposed to be taken over grass (no I can’t see any either) but then again for “records” that clearly becomes optional to the Met Office who also successfully archived (allegedly expunged) readings of 40.3°C at RAF Waddington.

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And, of course, record highest minimum temperatures can “officially” be taken by broken “taped up” thermometers and unauthorised additional equipment such as below…….honest guv!

Is it genuinely reasonable to expect the “climate activist” infiltrated Met Office to control the historic temperature data when they are acting with such complete disregard for scientific integrity? Clearly not from all the evidence available.

In conclusion why was Arthur Lander’s Canterbury site ultimately closed down with not even its data transcribed and treated as so dubious? Could it be that it was a good site recording accurately and employing sophisticated equipment ahead of its time? Did the Met Office not approve of such innovative improvements rather like modern artificial ventilation requirements? Should the ability to remove or question “inconveniently high” past data be allowed to be retained in Met Office control who are shown to have a rapid warming narrative to maintain? I certainly feel they should not retain this “right” and their past manipulations should be re-examined.

As a codicil, my long sought for Canterbury weather station that nearly made me visit the archives section of the Beaney Centre was located in the back garden of 17 High Street Canterbury…………in hindsight, and somewhat unsurprisingly……..that is now the Beaney Institute!!

Now the “heat has died down” (pun intended) I will shortly be reviewing the latest Met Office May rhetoric with some interesting findings.

Source: https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2026/06/05/canterbury-dcnn53cb-a-very-long-term-record-holder-novel-instrumentation-an-exceptional-summer-and-a-discussion-on-the-met-office-as-the-sole-keeper-of-the-keys/