Lenham is a market village in Kent situated on the southern edge of the North Downs, halfway between Maidstone and Ashford. The picturesque square in the village has two public houses (one of which is a hotel), a couple of restaurants, and a tea-room.
Lenham railway station is on the Maidstone East Line.
The village is at the main source of the Great Stour and the Stour Valley Walk starts here, heading to Ashford and on to Canterbury and the English Channel near Sandwich. It is also the source of the River Len, which flows in a westerly direction to join the River Medway at Maidstone.
Mentioned in the Domesday Book, Lenham market dates back to 1088, when the village was an important crossroad settlement. Technically the fact that Lenham is allowed a market, makes it a town but the community have always desired to maintain its village status.
The Pilgrims' Way/North Downs Way passes just to the north of Lenham, higher up on the 'downs' and it features a war memorial of a 200-foot chalk cross carved into the scarp slope of the downs. First constructed in 1922, to remember those who fell in the Great War, and fully restored in 1994, the cross now commemorates the dead of both world wars. To avoid its use as a navigation aid by the Luftwaffe, the cross was filled in between 1939 and May 1945.
On 27 August 1950, Lenham, along with the village of Harvel, was one of the signal receiving points (between Calais and London) of the first-ever live television pictures from the continent.
The parish church of St Mary was rebuilt in the 14th century after fire had destroyed its predecessor.[1] It and the nearby Tithe Barn are Grade I listed buildings.[2][3] From 1876 to his death in 1903, the vicar of the church was Charles Nepean,[4] who played for Oxford University A.F.C. in the 1874 FA Cup Final.[5] Nepean also played cricket for Middlesex.[6]
There is a primary school, Lenham Primary and secondary school. Swadelands at Lenham. A pair of cottages in Lenham had to be demolished to make way for the Channel Tunnel Rail Link. They were dismantled and re-erected at the Museum of Kent Life, Sandling.
A local kit car firm GKD Sports Cars has its workshop based in Lenham and its main base in Boughton Monchelsea. Also in Lenham is an old pharmacy which is famous for its discovery of a Saxon soldier body and weapons.
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