OOPS. Your Flash player is missing or outdated.Click here to update your player so you can see this content.

Recipe of the Week

Chicken Piralen >>

Main Menu

Google Pack - Free

Recommended Links

Kent - England

Kent is a county in England, south-east of London. The county town is Maidstone. Kent has land borders with East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London, and a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames estuary. Kent also has a nominal border with France halfway along the Channel Tunnel. Its name came from the Kingdom of Kent.

The two cities in Kent are Canterbury, the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Rochester, the seat of the Bishop of Rochester. However, since 1998 when local government was reorganised, Rochester lost its official city status through an administrative oversight; attempts are now being made to regain it. For other towns, see the list below.

Kent, because of its sobriquet "the Garden of England", might be regarded as a picturesque rural county, but farming is still an industry. Hops, a flower used in making beer, is a traditional crop, with picturesque Oast houses dotting the landscape. Over the centuries many other industries have been of importance; some still are. Woollen cloth-making, iron-making; paper; cement; engineering: all have been part of the industrial scene. Fishing and tourism occupy many people, especially the coastal resorts. The East Kent coalfield was mined in the 20th century: and there are two nuclear power stations at Dungeness, although the older one (built 1965) is due to close in 2006. Nevertheless, the district of Thanet has been regarded as one of the most disadvantaged areas in the south-east of England.

Ferry ports, the Channel Tunnel and two motorways provide links with the European continent. There are airports at Manston and smaller airfields at Headcorn, Lydd and Rochester.

Famous residents of Kent have included Charles Dickens and Charles Darwin. Sir Winston Churchill's home Chartwell is also in Kent.

Although the Victoria County History for Kent is limited, an extensive survey of the county was undertaken over a 50-year period by Edward Hasted between 1755-1805. William Lambarde was an even earlier writer, in the 16th century.

According to a marketing campaign conducted by the charity Plantlife in 2002, the county flower of Kent is the Hop.

A brief history of Kent

Kent was settled well before most other parts of England and has the oldest recorded place name in the British Isles. The County's history is closely bound up in it's proximity to mainland Europe. Archaeological remains from prehistoric times show clear links between Kent and northern Europe, as well as a land link.

Kent had no single natural urban centre but several towns of medium size. As local administration developed Kent was divided into two units, East (Men of Kent), administered from Canterbury, and West (Kentish Men), from Maidstone. In 1814 these two seperate administrations were merged and Maidstone became the County town.

Ease of access by water to London developed Chatham and Sheerness as dockland towns, and Margate and Ramsgate seaside resorts. All the towns along the eastern coast were significant either as commercial ports or in the defence of the realm. Dover, Hythe, New Romney and Sandwich were four of the Original five "Cinque Ports". Many paper mills were set up in the seventeenth century where sufficient water was available. Tunbridge Wells became a fashionable spa town in the 1670's. Else where in the County the dominant occupation was horticulture and the growing of hops for brewing. The hop, iron and cloth industries have provided the Kent landscape with two of the most prominent landmarks, the oast houses used for drying hops and the wealden hall houses of the Kent ironmasters and cloth manufacturers.

From the 1750's those parts of Kent nearest to London began to develop as suburbs of the capital. The County boundary was adjusted in 1889 when the present boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham became part of London. These were added to in 1965 with the boroughs of Bromley and Bexley. Further parts of Kent lying between the A21 and the M25 were added to London in 1974.

Much of West Kent is now London commuter territory and towns like Maidstone, Sevenoaks and Tonbridge have expanded rapidly in size and population. The coming of the railways in the mid-nineteenth century was responsible for reviving the fortunes of Folkestone and for transforming Ashford from a sleeply market town to the centre of railway communications in Kent.

During the war both Canterbury and Dover were heavily bombed by Germany and received numerous V1 and V2 rocket attacks from Calais during 1943. The subsequent rebuilding of Canterbury and the enlargement of towns like Maidstone and Dover since 1963 has changed much of Kent. The building works and extensive road system connected with the Channel Tunnel has had the greatest impact on the County's communication links and economic structure since the first trading forays of the Belgae from northern France around about 400 BC.