Copyright Kent Past 2010
Kent Past
The History of Kent
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History of Penenden Heath
Penenden Heath comes from the Old English 'pinian' meaning to ‘punish'. The Domesday Book chronicles Penenden Heath as Pinnedenna.
During the middle ages, Penenden Heath became the venue for the Shire Moot or assemblies.
The most famous of these occurred shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and involved
a dispute between Odo bishop of Bayeux, half-
Penenden Heath also became the site for local administrative
meetings and executions for several hundred years as well as a place for large gatherings
of the populace. Wat Tyler led a mob gathered at Penenden Heath to Union Street, Maidstone in
an early skirmish, in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The heath continued to be used
as a gathering place in the 16th Century to voice popular opinion or to amass the
public, in particular during Wyatt's rebellion. George Goring, Earl of Norwich and
leader of the Kent Royalists during the Second English Civil War, gathered an army
of 7,000 men on Penenden Heath in May 1648 in his unsuccessful defence of the town
of Maidstone from the Roundhead army of Lord Fairfax. Executions took place at the
site from the Saxon period through to the 17th Century. The heath held witch trials
between the 12th and 17th Centuries, and when found guilty the witches burnt at the
stake. In the 1830’s Penenden Heath ceased to be used for executions, which moved
to new gallows built outside Maidstone Prison.
In the 19th Century, Penenden Heath slowly
came to be enveloped by the growth of Maidstone, developing as a residential area
at the junction of the main routes to Sittingbourne and Boxley. In 1882, following
landscaping, the Earl of Romney presented the heath to the people of Maidstone for
use as a recreation ground.