Long before she became one of Hollywood’s most celebrated stars, Audrey Hepburn was learning music and dance at a small village school in the Kent countryside.

The future Breakfast at Tiffany’s and My Fair Lady actress spent part of her childhood in Elham, near Canterbury, where local historians say her love of performing was encouraged during three formative years before the outbreak of World War Two.

Today, a blue plaque on a cottage near the King’s Arms pub marks the place where Hepburn lived between 1936 and 1939.

“It really was the starting point for the young Audrey Hepburn that she became,” said Brian Badham, of Elham Historical Society.

Hepburn, then known as Audrey Ruston-Hepburn, arrived in the village after her parents separated.

Badham said it was decided she should continue her English education in Kent, where family friends were living.

She moved into Orchard Cottage with the Butcher family, among a number of Elham residents who offered accommodation to visitors before the war, according to local accounts.

She attended Rigden School in the centre of Elham where, Badham said, she would have had her lessons.

“One of the sisters encouraged Audrey to get involved with music and dance. That really was the starting point for the young Audrey Hepburn that she became,” he said.

Fellow historian Dilys Webb said Elham offered plenty for a young girl growing up in the late 1930s.

“I think it was far busier than it is today,” she said.

“There were more shops, coffee houses and pubs. In Audrey’s day I think it was more contained and everything that was here that she needed.

“She had quite a nice social life. She did ballet, she obviously went to the coffee houses and socialised with her friends, so I think there was plenty here for her in the few years she was here.”

The wartime years would take Hepburn far from Kent and shape the rest of her life.

As war approached her mother, a Dutch baroness, arranged for her to return to the Netherlands, then still a neutral country, in December 1939.

After Germany invaded in May 1940, Hepburn spent much of her teenage years under Nazi occupation.

She later helped the Dutch resistance by carrying messages and taking part in secret ballet performances to raise money for anti-Nazi causes.

The future actress also endured severe hardship during the war, suffering malnutrition as food shortages swept the occupied country.

Her son Luca Dotti once said in an interview: “She believed very much that there is a struggle between good and evil and you have to take sides.”

Although historians are unaware of her ever returning to Elham, residents remain “incredibly proud” that one of the world’s best-known actresses once called their community home.

Webb said: “Obviously when she was here the village didn’t know she was going to be a superstar. Now everybody knows of Audrey and we are a very, very proud village.”

Badham added: “She was very special. A wonderful lady and fondly loved by the people that she met while she was here.

“A short time but a lasting impact on their lives.”

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