Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Maidstone
Maidstone comes from the Old English ‘mægden’ meaning a ‘maiden’ with ‘stān’ as a ‘stone, rock’; therefore, the ‘stone of the maidens’. The Domesday Book chronicles Maidstone as Meddestane.
A small community existed when the Romans arrived and added villas and other stone
building..
The Domesday Book, records Maidstone as a centre for crafts and part of
the manorial estate of the Archbishop of Canterbury. By the 16th century, the small
manorial estate had grown into a market town and borough; with the founding of the
first Grammar school in 1549, and with growth in the number of schools, literacy
markedly improved. By 1620, Maidstone held most Assize hearings.
The Georgian period
sparked off real prosperity; living standards rose, specialist industries, shops,
inns and professions proliferated. Maidstone became a prominent market town, maintained
by the weekly Thursday market, four annual fairs, Sunday fairs, and a monthly cattle
market. Maidstone built the town hall in 1765 and replaced Canterbury as Kent's most
prominent town, with the opening of the first General Dispensary in 1824, a new gaol
in 1819, the County Sessions House in the 1820's, and expansion of the barracks.
The Saxons built the first wooden church -
Maidstone East railway station opened on the South Eastern Railway’s northward branch
from Paddock Wood, on 25 September 1844. It subsequently became part of the loop
to Strood on 18 June 1856…. more
Maidstone West station opened as the terminus on the South Eastern Railway’s northward branch from Paddock Wood, on 25 September 1844…. more
Maidstone Barracks station opened on the South Eastern Railway’s Medway Valley Line,
on 1st July 1874…. more