51°17N 0°32E, pop (2001e) 139 000. County town in Kent, SE England, UK; on the R Medway, S of Chatham; birthplace of William Hazlitt and Richard Beeching; railway; paper, fruit canning, brewing, cement, confectionery; 14th-c All Saints Church, 14th-c Archbishop's palace, Chillington Manor, Tyrwhitt Drake museum of carriages.
Maidstone (pronounced either mād'stun or mād'stone) is the county town of Kent, in South East England, United Kingdom.
Maidstone is literally a "stone of the maidens", most likely indicating a place where they were known to gather.
History
Early history
Although Stone Age finds have been made locally, it is the Romans who first gave Maidstone some importance.
This part of the Medway Valley was important too, by the time of the Domesday Book.
Status
Maidstone’s town status was confirmed when, in 1549, it was incorporated. However, when the people of Maidstone rebelled against the crown in support of Thomas Wyatt in 1554, this charter was revoked, although a new charter was established five years later, when Maidstone was created a borough.
The town's charter was finally ratified in 1619 under James I, and the coat of arms, bearing a golden lion and a representation of the river, was designed.
Industries
The quarrying of good building stone around Maidstone has always been important and continues even today.
In the 17th century the Wealden cloth industry reached as far north as the town;
In Maidstone there were many little breweries at the end of the 19th century.
Another by-product of the riverside location was paper mills, known locally as "the treacle mines". Today Aylesford (on the north west side of Maidstone) now has the largest paper recycling factory in Europe, manufacturing paper to be used in the newspaper industry.
Until 1998 the sweet factory of Trebor Basset, makers of liquorice allsorts, was located 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 &
Communications
River Medway
Improvements had been made about 1730 to the River Medway, so that barges of 40 tons could get upriver to East Farleigh, Yalding and even Tonbridge.
The medieval stone bridge was replaced in 1879 to give better clearance: it was designed by Sir Joseph Bazalgette.
Today the river is of importance only to pleasure-boat owners and the considerable number of people living on houseboats.
Roads
One of the first roads in Kent to be turnpiked was that from Rochester to Maidstone, in 1728, giving some indication of the town’s importance.
Railways
Maidstone was not well served when railways were first being built in the 1840s.
In the event, in 1842, the South Eastern Railway, in its haste to reach the Channel ports of Folkestone and Dover, put its main line through Tonbridge and Ashford, some six miles to the south. A station named Maidstone Road was built in an isolated spot called Paddock Wood, from where coaches were run to the county town.
Two years later a branch line was built to Maidstone. There are three stations: Maidstone West and Maidstone Barracks on the Medway Valley Line (whose platforms are visible one from the other);
Education
When Maidstone was incorporated in 1549 it was authorised to build a grammar school, which survives to this day as Maidstone Grammar School.
William Lambe, a wealthy clothmaker, endowed another school in 1574.
Other secondary schools include Maidsone and Invicta Girls' Grammar Schools, Oakwood Boys Grammar, Valley Park Community School, Maplesden Noakes, The Astor of Hever Sports College, and St. Simon Stock School, which is the only Catholic school within the area and often over-subscribed.
The Astor of Hever Sports College is embroiled in a dispute over plans to demolish their school farm, one of 9 remaining in the UK.
Cornwallis has featured in the local press over their new head teacher's controversial decision to rebrand the school NLL (New Line Learning), which would include dropping the school's traditional emblem - a stag, and introducing ICT classes containing more than 100 pupils.
Also in Maidstone is the University College for the Creative Arts at Maidstone at which the acclaimed British artist Tracy Emin began her artistic education, among others.
Maidstone Prison
The prison lies to the north of the town centre.
The final execution took place on Penenden Heath to the NE of the town in December 1830.
Barracks
There have been two Army barracks in Maidstone.
The White Rabbit public house occupies what used to be the officer's quarters of Invicta Barracks.
Sport
The local football team Maidstone United FC, formed in 1897, have had a turbulent recent history. They now play in the Kent League and in November 2004 were granted planning permission to build a stadium on Whatman Way in Maidstone, after having been forced to play their home games originally in the grounds of a local LDS church and more recently ground sharing with Sittingbourne FC since selling their London Road ground in the 1980s.
Maidstone United have recently won promotion to the Ryman League.
Kent County Cricket Club played a week of first class cricket at the Mote Cricket Ground in Mote Park every summer for nearly 150 years.
Maidstone Sailing Club are a small sailing club that sail on Mote Park lake. Maidstone also has a Rowing Club
Maidstone also boasts a Martial Arts School, a Tennis Club, an Athletics Club, a Rugby Club and Maidstone Pumas American Football Club.
Theatres
Theatres in Maidstone include:
The Hazlitt Theatre RiverStage The Exchange (also known as The Corn exchange) Hermitage Millennium AmphitheatreMaidstone today
The original site of the town, where the main streets are, is on the rising ground to the east of the River Medway.
The county council offices, to the north of the town centre, beside the prison, were built 1910-1913 of Portland stone.
Maidstone General Hospital opened on the outskirts of the town in 1983, replacing West Kent General Hospital, which had been opened 150 years earlier in Marsham Street.
Many of today's residents use Maidstone as a base to commute to London, or are employed within the retail, administrative or service sectors within the town.
In March 2005, the Fremlin Walk shopping arcade opened, after years of development on the site of a derelict brewery in the centre of the town.
Maidstone in recent years has become one of the night life hotspots of Kent with countless bars and several large clubs such as Ikon and Strawberry Moons.
Population
Maidstone has grown considerably since the start of the 19th century:
1801 8,000 1861 23,100 1921 37,300 1961 59,800 2001 138,948 - for the whole of Maidstone District of which 68,350 are male and 70,598 are female
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