Town on a ten-pound note

Above: Douces Manor, West Malling

Above: Kings Hill

West Malling’s cricket ground, where the first ever game was played in 1705, is pictured on the old £10 note alongside Charles Dickens, who popularised the town in his novel, Pickwick Papers. The town also boasts a 900-year-old Abbey, still inhabited by Benedictine nuns, a self-sufficient religious community, and it’s known as Kent’s capital of restaurants, due to the variety of cuisine on offer.

Kings Hill parish, only a mile away, is a newly created Kentish hamlet, built on the site of the old West Malling Airport from where Squadron Leader Guy Gibson flew during World War II. This new community is so attractive that its focal point, the shops, art gallery and restaurants of Liberty Square, were featured in Channel 4’s recent TV drama Cape Wrath. In 2004, residents within the Kings Hill postcode area were the highest earners in Britain.

Visit West Malling and you’ll find a refreshingly wide High Street with an astonishing number of individual businesses and shops plus many unexpected vistas. In The Mill Yard, off Swan Street, you can buy original paintings, homeware, and choose from a host of antique teddy bears and toys, or visit a craft centre within 15th-century buildings that are vibrant with light and life. The Abbey Arcade is tucked between shops, with stallholders offering a range of gift items.

Historic street
Historic King Street, behind the main road, is home to one of the country’s leading restoration centres for that most classic of British cars, the Morris Minor. The town has a medieval layout, built to accommodate a 12th-century weekly market, and features architecture from virtually every era since then.

West Malling town’s sister village, Kings Hill, is a redevelopment success story. In 1994, Liberty Property Trust UK and Kent County Council allied with a handful of award-winning developers to build a variety of upmarket homes and apartments, plus everything required for a community: shops, schools, medical centre, 18-hole golf course, cricket pitch, leisure centre and business park. It is still evolving, due for completion in 2009.

Kings Hill conforms to an overall masterplan, where resident areas are linked by footpaths and cycleways and homes are built in materials to reflect the traditional way of English life. At its heart is Liberty Square, a 21-unit retail and amenity area, including an art gallery, gift shops, a variety of restaurants and medical facilities.

There’s a Kings Hill Centre community hall alongside a French square with trees, village green, an ASDA store, The Spitfire Public House, with a hotel and conference centre planned, plus a nursery and two primary schools.

One of the many sculptures is A different ball game, featuring a silver ball supported by lifesize bronze figures. The original wartime control tower is due to be converted to an upmarket restaurant/brasserie, and sports pitches, a country park and an equestrian centre are planned.

Luxury of space
Environ Country Homes, one of the key developers, believe passionately in low-density construction, giving homeowners appreciably more garden space and larger living areas than is usual. They believe that homes should be built and landscaped simultaneously. These luxurious houses feature sliding walls and plentiful glazing onto gardens.

“You can live, work and relax here,” explains an Environ spokesman. “Our idea is to recreate the chemistry of a hamlet, and our vision was to include the landscaping of green areas as actually part of the houses.

Kings Hill is a dramatic breakaway from the 1980s-style estates, and all major facilities are within cycling/walking distance. A country park is due to be developed later. Our particular development is surrounded by this proposed park, Warren Wood and is close to the new cricket pitch.”

Did you know?

• West Malling Airport (now Kings Hill village) was where Squadron Leaders Guy Gibson, Johnny Johnson, and Wing Commanders ‘Cats Eyes’ Cunningham and Peter Townsend, flew from. Previously pioneer aviators Alcock and Brown completed their transatlantic flight there in 1919 and it was where Amy Johnson frequently berthed her aircraft in the 1930s. The Dambusters film was made there.
• Charles Dickens popularized West Malling in the Pickwick Papers, especially the Old County Cricket ground (in Norman road) which is the site of the first recorded cricket match in 1705. The village sign depicts this cricketing scene.
• There are monthly Farmers’ markets and an annual Town Malling Day, at the end of May.
• Underground Norman tunnels pervade the village: notably from Leybourne Castle to the abbey and St Leonard’s tower via Douce’s Manor. In Elizabethan times a fiddler went down one tunnel playing his instrument until he was heard no more: his place of expiry was christened Fiddlers copse.
• George Orwell spent time there as a destitute hop picker, living in the town’s workhouse, prior to his literary successes.
• John Downham, the famous artist, lived in the town. He painted Lord Nelson’s portrait, when the admiral was attending the funeral of one of his three captains, who resided in the town.
• The Pilsdon community is a religious (Anglican) community on the site of the former Ewell Monastery, next to St Mary’s Abbey, where people are welcome to share in their self sufficient life, keeping chickens, ducks, geese and sheep, and growing fruit and vegetables.
• There’s a wealth of historical artifacts in Maidstone museum relating to the town, mostly donated by the Malling (local history) society, including 2,500 glass plates belonging to the early photographer Freda Barton, and many Roman remains.
• The artist JMW Turner painted The Cascade - a local beauty feature - and this was discovered only recently.

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