It's not every day you see the Archbishop of Canterbury clutching a pint at your local Wetherspoon branch.

The Most Reverend Justin Welby last night paid a visit to Ramsgate's Royal Victoria Pavilion, answering questions - some of which controversial - to a packed audience.

The principal leader of the Church of England tackled questions on varying subjects, from homelessness and suicide to heaven and his perfect Sunday, with many answers met with roars of laughter and rounds of applause.

When asked what he was hoping to achieve in Thanet, he quipped: "Well, principally I'm hoping to get a sun tan, but that bit is not going very well you see."

He then said: "I'm hoping to learn - because of my job I don't get down here as much as I like, so I've got a lot to learn.

"I don't know this area, so it's coming here, listening to people, speaking to people, answering questions.

"Above all, the aim is to talk about the transformation of hope that comes with Jesus Christ."

The Archbishop also drew on personal experiences when giving answers, including on more sensitive topics such as suicide and mental health.

He spoke of his daughter Katharine's well-documented struggle with her mental health and depression.

He said: "There will be most of us who know someone, or know of someone, who has committed suicide.

"A lot of it is obviously allied to mental illness.

"From our own experience, as some of you will probably know, one of our children has had many years of suffering with depression and she's been very open about it.

"She's written about it, she speaks about it. She fortunately seems to be in a better place at the moment.

"But what we've learnt through that - and I'll be honest I was very ignorant about this, and we had to learn a great deal - was that mental illness is just illness. It's just not very visible.

"We had to learn that the first thing, and as the church we can do, is enable people to be open, and not to be ashamed of mental illness.

"That by itself will make a huge difference. To say to people it's no more shameful to be mentally ill than physically ill.

"If you break an arm, you don't go around pretending it's not broken - or if you do you're a bit of an idiot.

"If you're sensible, you go to hospital and someone helps you.

"But so many people are terrified about talking about mental illness, and in the church we're not often a lot better.

"It won't solve it, but it will make a significant difference - enabling people to be honest and know they'll be accepted."

The hour-and-a-half-long session rounded up at 9pm - with many calling out for more and others rushing for a chance to talk to the Archbishop.

Deputy manager of the Royal Victoria Pavilion, Cherie Aris, said the evening went "brilliantly".

She added: "It was really good, we really enjoyed the evening.

"He was a brilliant speaker, he was welcoming.

"I think he changed some of our staff's perception on the church and how they felt they were viewed.

"It was Reverend Paul Worledge's (vicar of St Luke's in Ramsgate) idea. It was him who originally approached us and said this is what he wanted to do.

"It's a big open space people can come to and get more of community involved."

The Archbishop is undertaking a week long visit to Thanet, visiting schools, meeting with community leaders and speaking at church services.

On Good Friday, a walk of witness will be held in Broadstairs, setting off from Balmoral Gardens at 10.30am, and arriving at the bandstand at 11am.

An Easter Vigil will take place on Saturday from 6.30pm to 8.45pm at Holy trinity in Broadstairs.