Life in the fast lane

Above: Central Maidstone

Above: Fremlin Walk, Maidstone

Above: The rural side of the county town

Maidstone wears many different faces and has always produced strong emotions in people: some passionately ‘for’, others not quite so convinced of its merits. Strategically, there’s no denying it makes the ideal county town, on the main route between London and Europe, just 30 miles from the capital in one direction and the English Channel in the other.

Four junctions provide direct access to the M20, while the M2 is just minutes away by dual carriageway. With three town-centre stations and a number of rural ones, Maidstone also has good rail links with London and the rest of the country – yet it’s also right in the heart of the Garden of England, surrounded by glorious countryside.

Not only that, the River Medway runs through its centre and has always played a significant role in the town’s commercial success, right from Roman and medieval times, when it was used to ship stone. Later on, the growth of the timber, paper and brewing trades in the town was only made possible by a navigable Medway.

Central market
Central to a market of more than a million people within 30 minutes’ drive, Maidstone is not only at the commercial heart of the county, but it’s also Kent’s business capital. Its population has grown from 8,000 in 1801 to 138,948 (2001 Census) and, with the largest amount of office space in the county and a major centre for financial, consultancy and professional services, the area is an important base for the paper and packaging industry, and a location for high-tech jobs in the surrounding business parks.

It is, however, let’s be honest, a bit of a sprawl, lacking a proper centre but with lots of separate areas that, unless you know the town well, could easily remain undiscovered. The broad high street, originally the town’s marketplace, does its best to fulfil the role, but it’s not helped by ending up at a bridge over the Medway that, instead of being a real feature, is not much more than a flat extension of the road.

Think of the pretty Big Bridge across the Medway in the much smaller market town of Tonbridge to imagine how much more attractive the entrance to Maidstone could be.

Yet, surprisingly, the town has an extraordinary medieval heart to it that belies its car-filled, one-way system that has defeated many a motorist trying to get in, or out, of the town.

Leave the motor in one of the town’s many multi-storey car parks for a few hours, get yourself down to the river by the Millennium Bridge, and you are suddenly transported away from the traffic and busy streets to one of the most impressive complexes of medieval architecture in the country.

Jewel in the crown
Jewel in the crown is the Archbishops’ Palace, originally built in the 14th century as a resting place for Archbishops and their entourages travelling between London and Canterbury. It’s now used mainly for weddings as Maidstone’s Register Office. Opposite the Palace are the old episcopal stables, now housing the Tyrwhitt-Drake collection of carriages, regarded as the finest in Europe.

Then there’s the College of All Saints, an important academic and spiritual centre for all of Kent up to its dissolution in 1546, while the parish church of All Saints is regarded as ‘the grandest Perpendicular church in England.’

Along the banks of the Medway, the Millennium River Park includes 10km paths along the banks of the river from Teston to Allington, so it has a rural character at both ends and a very urban heart.

Back in the 21st century, Maidstone is one of the top five centres in the south east for shopping yields, with more than one million square feet of retail floorspace. Fremlin Walk, which opened in March 2005 on the riverside site of the former Fremlin’s Brewery, has seen Maidstone regain the title of largest shopping centre in Kent.

Individual shops of character can be found in Market Buildings, Gabriels’s Hill (where the Battle of Maidstone reached its climax in 1648), the High Street and the Royal Star Arcade, originally an old coaching inn and a real hidden gem in the heart of town.

On the entertainments side, the riverside Lockmeadow Centre on the Tonbridge Road side of town offers an Odeon Multiplex, restaurants, a nightclub and market square, while back in the centre, there are more than 10 clubs, a growing number of pubs and restaurants (Earl Street, home to the excellent Hazlitt Theatre, has the highest proportion of places to eat in town), plus many venues offering live music.

Make your known mind up: busy, and ever-growing, Maidstone still has its serene areas, riverside walks, a sense of history - and a love of life.

Did you know?

• Stone Age finds have been made locally, but it was the Romans who first gave Maidstone importance. Their road from Watling Street at Rochester to Hastings across the Weald passed through the site, and two villas have been discovered. They were also among the first to extract stone (the sandstone known as Kentish ragstone) from the area.

• In the Middle Ages, there were two hospitals here built for the care of wayfarers, especially those on pilgrimage; and a ‘college’ of secular priests.

• In 1554, Sir Thomas Wyatt rallied a rebellious crowd of 10,000 in Maidstone’s High Town (now the high street) to march on London to protest against Mary I’s unpopular marriage to Philip of Spain. The attempted rebellion was unsuccessful and led to both Wyatt’s execution and the loss of Maidstone’s Royal Charter.

• Maidstone’s coat of arms bears a golden lion, a representation of the River Medway, the head of a white horse (representing Invicta, the motto of Kent), a golden lion and an iguanodon. The iguanodon relates to the discovery in the 19th century of the fossilised remains of such a dinosaur locally. These remains are now displayed in the Natural History Museum in London.

• On 28 April 1868, the execution of the last person in Britain to be publicly hanged, Frances Kidder, a 25-year-old woman who had murdered her stepdaughter, took place outside Maidstone Prison.

• There were many small breweries in Maidstone at the end of the 19th century, the river being useful for transport and water for the beer production. One of the biggest, the Style & Winch brewery, was on the river bank in the centre of the town. It shut in 1965.

• Until 1998, the Sharps toffee factory of (later part of Cadbury Trebor Basset), makers of liquorice allsorts, was in central Maidstone and provided a significant source of employment.

• The global loudspeaker manufacturer KEF began in Maidstone in a Nissen hut on the premises of a metal working operation called Kent Engineering & Foundry (hence KEF). In the late 1990s, KEF manufactured a loudspeaker called ‘the Maidstone.’

• Maidstone was the first town in the south of England to be accredited with the Safer Shopping Award and the first in the UK to receive the night time equivalent, the Safer Socialising Award.

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