Old Maidstone Maps

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www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63799670

Interesting article from the Beeb on how High Streets have changed in the last two years. Interactive too, as you can put in your own postcode to check the local situation.
Seems we have more tattoo parlours, nail bars and coffee shops. No surprise really, I suppose, but yet to frequent the first two!

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Dec 6, 2022 9:23:46 GMT @61666 said:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-63799670

Interesting article from the Beeb on how High Streets have changed in the last two years. Interactive too, as you can put in your own postcode to check the local situation.
Seems we have more tattoo parlours, nail bars and coffee shops. No surprise really, I suppose, but yet to frequent the first two!

Its quite true,in Tonbridge in one quarter of a mile there are 6 nail bars 13 barbers/hairdressers and 12 coffee shops/cafes not to forget the 11 charity shops

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I’m fascinated by all the chapels in mid 19th century Maidstone.

maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=19.1&lat=51.27359&lon=0.52470&layers=117746211&b=1

The Baptist Chapel (general) just off King Street somewhere near the Mall entrance.
Sittings for 700, including 200 free.

Unitarian Chapel (still in use) Market Buildings, Earl Street.
450 sittings, none free. Quite beautiful inside.
www.maidstoneunitarianchurch.org

Independent Chapel (congregational), Week Street. Now United Reformed Church.
Sittings for 800, none free.
www.maidstoneurc.co.uk

Bethel Chapel (particular baptists), Union Street. Was recently a restaurant?
Sittings for 450, none free.
Moved to Knightrider Street in 1909.

Providence Chapel (particular baptists), under the road opposite Maidstone Mosque.
Sittings 250, including 40 free.
Opened 1820. Closed 1956.

Friends Meeting House (quakers), Wheeler Street.
Sittings for 80, all free.
Moved to Union Street 1976 after the council bought the site for a car park.
heritage.quaker.org.uk/files/Maidstone%20LM.pdf

Will edit this post as the above list expands.

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Maidstone also had both trams and trolley buses: the latter up to the late '50s I believe. Then there was the railway line over the river to from Maidstone West to the paper mills at Tovil. In the early 1900s there was a proposal to extend it up the Loose Valley to Sutton Valance, then down to Headcorn, to meet up with the Kent & East Sussex Railway, which then went to Tenterden and Robertsbridge. One of many projects by the redoubtable Colonel Holman Frederick Stephens. Actually got as far as him buying a powerful engine to cope with the steep gradients, but sadly came to nothing.

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Dec 7, 2022 9:16:21 GMT @61666 said:

Maidstone also had both trams and trolley buses: the latter up to the late '50s I believe. Then there was the railway line over the river to from Maidstone West to the paper mills at Tovil. In the early 1900s there was a proposal to extend it up the Loose Valley to Sutton Valance, then down to Headcorn, to meet up with the Kent & East Sussex Railway, which then went to Tenterden and Robertsbridge. One of many projects by the redoubtable Colonel Holman Frederick Stephens. Actually got as far as him buying a powerful engine to cope with the steep gradients, but sadly came to nothing.

There was a Tovil station too, although (typically of railway stations) not actually in Tovil - it was on the Maidstone side of the river, just before the pedestrian bridge.

The railway bridge was still there when we moved to Maidstone in 78 - demolished soon after if memory serves.

I don't think the extension of the K&ES to Maidstone was ever a serious project (except in Col Stephens mind), the revenue would never have justified the costs, even under Light Railway regulations. And the climb up from the Weald and the steepness of the Loose Valley would have been required more than just a "powerful engine"! If I remember correctly, although the K&ES had a brief period of profitability in the early days, by the time the Maidstone extension was proposed, it was already making a loss.

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I love the film The Titfield Thunderbolt,just thought I'd mention that 😁🚂

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Stephens built another light railway in East Kent, but I couldn't remember exactly where. I was just checking this, when I discovered he'd actually built or run a total of seventeen railways! Not bad for a man who died at 62.

The EK, by the way was mainly built to service the Kent coalfields (RIP) and the last remaining bit only closed as late as 86, when Thatcher's hatred of unions fially did for the Kent coalfields. It did carry some passenger traffic though, and a short section (Shepherdswell to Eythorne) is preserved.

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Dec 7, 2022 13:51:25 GMT sword65 said:

I love the film The Titfield Thunderbolt,just thought I'd mention that 😁🚂

A Titfield Thunderbolt trainset is being brought out by Hornby

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Dec 8, 2022 9:17:51 GMT @61666 said:

Dec 7, 2022 13:51:25 GMT sword65 said:

I love the film The Titfield Thunderbolt,just thought I'd mention that 😁🚂

A Titfield Thunderbolt trainset is being brought out by Hornby

Awesome! Woo woo🚂🚂

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Dec 8, 2022 9:17:51 GMT @61666 said:

Dec 7, 2022 13:51:25 GMT sword65 said:

I love the film The Titfield Thunderbolt,just thought I'd mention that 😁🚂

A Titfield Thunderbolt trainset is being brought out by Hornby

The film was inspired by, and to some extent based on, the early days of the restoration of the Tallylyn Railway (Rheilffordd Talyllyn for our Welsh readers) - on which I have worked! And also Tom Rolt's book about the volunteer takeover of the line 'Railway Adventure'. A book well worth reading, by the way - not just for rail nerds, but as a view of the history of England at the time (70 years ago). Very different to the world we know now.

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The Colonel, meanwhile also engineered the Paddock Wood to Hawkhurst railway (at the age of just 23), plus the Rye and Camber Tramway, the Sheppey Light Railway to Leysdown and a host of other minor lines, all run from a terraced house in Tonbridge, where Sword now lives.
This last bit may not be true...

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Interesting map. Not sure if 4.57% LGBO is high or not.

www.ons.gov.uk/census/maps/choropleth/identity/sexual-orientation/sexual-orientation-4a/lesbian-gay-bisexual-or-other-lgb?msoa=E02005071

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Million pound houses in Maidstone. No wonder we struggled for so long to find an investor. Maidstone is not a poor town, but lacks a millionaires row. Click to expand.

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True, but if you had a million quid to spend on a house, why do it in Maidstone, when there are plenty of nice villages outside to choose from like Benover, for example, though there have always been rumours about Brinksmat robbery gangsters living there.
Possibly not the sort of cash investment we might want...

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Call for action over river Len pollution, got me thinking about river Medway tributaries, most of which had many water mills.

www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/action-needed-over-litter-strewn-river-which-smells-the-who-281260/

The river Eden, from which Edenbridge takes its name.

The river Grom which runs through Groombridge.

The river Bourne joins the Medway at East Peckham.

The river Beult has several sources near Ashford, flows through Headcorn, jointing the Medway at Yalding.

Wateringbury Stream from West Peckham through Mereworth joining the Medway at Wateringbury.

The river Loose from Langley through Loose, joining the Medway at Tovil.

The river Len, starts at Lenham and shares a source with the Great Stour.