Bearsted

Bearsted railway station serves Bearsted in Kent, England. The station and all trains serving it are operated by Southeastern. It is 42 miles 59 chains (68.8 km) down the line from London Victoria via Herne Hill.Inside the station building are staffed and self-service ticket sales and a café. A new footbridge was built on the opposite side of the station from the original in 2011.

Holy Cross is a parish church of the Church of England in Bearsted, Kent. Its construction begun in the 13th century.

The Kent Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in Kent, England. They are the eastern half of the North Downs and stretch from the London/Surrey borders to the White Cliffs of Dover, including a small section of the London Borough of Bromley. The AONB also includes the Greensand Ridge, a prominent sandstone escarpment which lies south of the chalk escarpment of the North Downs. It was first designated as an AONB in July 1968 and covers 878 square km (326 square miles). The AONB's highest point is Toy's Hill, at 250m above sea level, and its boundaries include three main rivers: the Darent, Medway and Stour.To the west, Surrey Hills AONB adjoins the Kent Downs AONB, and includes a continuation of the North Downs chalk ridge which runs through the Kent Downs, stretching from Farnham to the English Channel and reappearing within the Parc Naturel Régional des Caps et Marais d’Opale in France. High Weald AONB lies to the south east, separated by a distance of just over 2km at Bough Beech Reservoir. As part of the management of the AONB, Village Design Statements have been adopted by 14 per cent of villages within its boundaries, going on to form part of Supplementary Planning Guidance, recognising the character of the historic landscape and distinctiveness of settlements.

St Mary the Virgin is a small parish church in Thurnham, Kent. Begun in the 12th century, it is a Grade I listed building.

Caring is a settlement south of Bearsted, near the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. It is located amid several farms on the River Len, a tributary of the Medway. The population of the settlement is included in the Thurnham civil parish. Caring Wood is a private family home designed by architects James Macdonald Wright and Niall Maxwell. In 2017 the house won an RIBA National Award and the RIBA House of the Year.

Spot Lane Quarry is a 0.1-hectare (0.25-acre) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest on the eastern outskirts of Maidstone in Kent. It is a Geological Conservation Review site.This site exposes loess, probably dating to the glacial Wolstonian Stage between 352,000 and 130,000 years ago. It contains the fossils of land snails, and as loess in Britain is usually unfossiliferous, it is one of the few sites where loess fauna can be studied.The site is now a public footpath.

Weavering is a village, mainly consisting of parts of the Grove Green and Bearsted Park housing Estates, centred on Weavering Street, within the borough of Maidstone, Kent in South East England that was formerly farmland. At the 2014 Census the population of the village was included in the civil parish of Thurnham.

Thurnham is a village and civil parish which lies at the foot of the North Downs 3 miles (4.8 km) north east of Maidstone in the Borough of Maidstone and ceremonial county of Kent in England. It had a population of 1,085 in 2001 including Weavering, which increased to 1,205 following the 2011 Census.There have been several archaeological finds in the area: an Anglo-Saxon burial ground was discovered within the grounds of Thurnham Friars in 1913, a 7th-century gold cross was found in 1967 and the remains of a Roman house were excavated in 1933. The remains of Thurnham Castle are just north of the village. Two miles further north are the fragmentary remains of Binbury Castle, a medieval fortified manor house beside a medieval motte. St Mary's church (a Norman building) and Milgate House are Grade I listed buildings. The railway station at Bearsted, opened on 1 July 1884, was originally named Bearsted and Thurnham. Residents of the village joined forces with the neighbouring village of Bearsted, in voicing their objections to the proposed Kent International Gateway development.

Downswood is a civil parish in the Borough of Maidstone in Kent, England. The population of the civil parish at the 2011 census was 2,291. It is bounded to the north by the River Len and Bearsted, and to the south by Otham, and is 2 miles (3 km) from Maidstone, the county town of Kent. Downswood has been a parish in its own right since 1987. Prior to this it was part of the civil parish of Otham.The village is to the east of the Maidstone urban area, with Mote Park forming the western boundary. A corn mill was recorded in the Domesday Book on the River Len. A fulling mill was also established on the river but this was not until around 1550. To the south of Downswood lies St Nicolas's Church which has its origins in the 12th century and to the east stands The Orchard Spot, a local public house, that was originally established in the 14th century as a farm house for local orchards.Between 1940 and 1970 the area was quarried for ragstone which is still evident from outcrops that appear in Spot Lane Nature Reserve and The Len Valley Walk. The easternmost ragstone quarry exhibits a series of cambered blocks, tilted down slope and intervening loess filled gulls. The site in Downswood provides the best cross section through a series of cambers and gulls that are currently visible in Britain and is a site of special scientific interest.

Stoneacre is a small National Trust property in Otham, near Maidstone, Kent in southern England. The property is a half-timbered yeoman farmer's house dating from the 15th century, together with a small garden, orchard and meadows. The house is a Grade II* listed building.

Otham Manor, previously known as Wardes, is a late 14th-century manor house in Otham, Kent. The house was built in the late 14th century, probably around 1370, and was altered and extended in the 16th century. It is a L-shaped two-storey timber-framed hall house; the north wing being the older part and the south wing being from the 16th century. The north wing has jettied bays at each end; the western bay having been rebuilt. The clay tiled hipped roof is steeply pitched with a gable to the south end of the south wing. Internally the roof structure is exposed with tie beams and king post. The house was restored in 1912 by Sir Louis du Pan Mallet, ambassador to the Sublime Porte. Sir Louis engaged the architect Philip Tilden who extended the house with a wing to the west. The whole house is a Grade I listed building.The Listing described the mansion as a "GV I House, formerly cottages, now house. Late C14 with C16 alterations and additions". The estate was in a state of "semi-dereliction by the early 1990s" according to Country Life (magazine). It was subsequently restored by new owners and listed for sale in 2019.

The Kent International Gateway was a proposed logistics hub and strategic rail-freight interchange (SRFI) next to the M20 motorway east of Maidstone. The project was controversial because it was a major development in a special landscape area close to several historic villages. Following a public inquiry that ended in December 2009, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government rejected the proposal on 5 August 2010.