Places to see pre and post 14 day England tour in July

For those not familiar with the tour, it starts in Bath and ends in London.
https://www.ricksteves.com/tours/england/best-england-tour

Salisbury certainly is. If memory serves about an hour and half train ride from Waterloo Station.

Would be happy to help suggest other sites but NO clue what and where is included on the 14 day tour.

Remember don’t push yourself on the day of arrival. Let your body adjust to the time change. Once you arrive at your accommodation see where the closest tube station, coffeeshop, pub and market for bottled water and snacks are located.

Let your senses adapt.

Get a good nights sleep.

Enjoy!

Salisbury is a great option, if I'm not mistaken there is a direct train to Bath. Dover is out of the way for this tour. Personally I thought Dover was overwhelmingly underwhelming. For eye popping white cliffs go to Beachy Head instead, but probably on another visit, you could easily spend your last 3 days in London.

We're doing that tour in June. Our plan is to head back to York for a few days, then spend a final 5 or 6 days in London. There's never enough time on these tours!

One can never have too much time in London, so that makes sense to stay there after the tour and explore further.

For the days before, Salisbury would be a great choice. A beautiful and friendly town, and you can see Stonehenge which apparently is not on the RS tour. There is indeed a direct train from there to Bath—-we have taken it. I have been to Salisbury twice, and keep trying to find time to return and spend more time. Take a look at the Red Lion, a lovely historic hotel.

https://the-redlion.co.uk/

Or head straight to Windsor from Heathrow, spend one night, and them move to Salisbury.

Dover is definitely skippable.

On the theme of Dover, and on the same rail line- what about Canterbury? Easy day trip from London. Or somewhere on the North Kent coast like Whitstable, or the Chatham Historic Dockyard.

All easy day trips from London, or you could base down in Kent, and use train and local buses- and that is three days covered. For some reason Chatham Dockyard is not mentioned much on this forum. If you are doing Chatham then there is historic Rochester close by- Dickens connections (with it's castle).
Or you have Leeds Castle.

Also thinking back to Dover- there is Deal Castle. Deal is also one of the Cinque towns and worth a visit in itself. Close by you also have Walmer Castle.

There is also the former Channel port of Folkestone (which gets no love on this forum), which is also the gateway to Dungeness and the Romney Marsh area.

Thank you everyone for all of the great ideas. I will research all your suggestions. Salisbury and extra time in London looks like it may be our best option.
Thank you again

I think that sounds like a good idea. I'd plan on Salisbury for 2 nights then you have a full day there. You can easily do the public bus shuttle out to Stonehenge if that is of interest to you as that is not on the Best of England itinerary (Avebury, nearby, is).

The Stonehenge shuttle leaves from either the city center or from the train station and is run by the Salisbury Reds which is the local bus company.

You can also visit the cathedral, take a walking tour of Salisbury thru the Tourist Information office, visit the Salisbury Museum (artifacts from Stonehenge and other local spots) or walk thru the "water meadows" from which John Constable painted the views of the Salisbury Cathedral.

One of the hidden things there is the "Doom Painting" (Last Judgement) in St Thomas Church, Salisbury which was the church built for the workers who were building the cathedral.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Thomas%27s_Church,_Salisbury
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_paintings

I find SO MUCH to do in Salisbury! It's very easy to get a train from Salisbury to Bath - just about an hour's ride.

Save the White Cliffs of Dover until you take the Southern England tour, lolol!! They go to visit them!

Thank you All these great ideas and things to see in Salisbury. I guess that I’ll hold off on Dover and the cliffs