Bean, Kent

Beacon Wood Country Park is a public woodland in Bean near Dartford, in Kent, England. It was previously an industrial claypit then re-claimed as woodland park open to the public, currently owned by Lafarge.

North West Kent is a geographical area in Kent, a county in south-east England. The term North West Kent may refer to one or both of two distinct areas; one is entirely within the modern boundaries of Kent, whereas the other also contains parts of Greater London that fall within the traditional boundaries of Kent. In the present-day county, North West Kent comprises the administrative districts of Dartford Borough, Gravesham Borough, the town of Swanley and certain nearby villages in the northern part of Sevenoaks District along the A20 corridor, including Farningham, Eynsford and West Kingsdown. In London, the term is also used to describe the certain areas within the London boroughs of Bexley and Bromley that do not have SE postcodes and are historically and postally part of the county of Kent. In 1998 there was a government proposal to unite the parts of the area that reman within Kent as a unitary authority, which was subsequently dismissed after a public enquiry. Notable developments in the area include the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, Ebbsfleet International railway station and Bluewater Shopping Centre.

Ebbsfleet Valley is a new town and redevelopment area in Kent, South East England, and part of the Thames Gateway, southwest of Gravesend. Development is coordinated by the Ebbsfleet Development Corporation. It is named after the valley of the Ebbsfleet River, which it straddles. Although a small part of the site in the east lies within the borough of Gravesham, Ebbsfleet Valley primarily sits in the borough of Dartford.

Stone Castle is a castle at Stone, near Bluewater in Kent, England. It was built between 1135 and 1140 on the site where William the Conqueror signed a treaty with the men of Kent in 1067.

Darenth Wood is a 122.9-hectare (304-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Dartford in Kent.This ancient semi-natural wood has many rare invertebrates, including thirty-two which are nationally scarce and two which are nationally rare: these are beetles which live in dead and dying oak timber, Grilis pannonicus and Platypus cylindricus.The wood is crossed by roads and footpaths.

Bluewater Shopping Centre (commonly referred to as Bluewater) is an out-of-town shopping centre in Stone (postally Greenhithe), Kent, England, outside the M25 motorway, 17.8 miles (28.6 km) east south east of London's centre. Opened on 16 March 1999 in a former chalk quarry after ten years of building works, the site (including car parks) occupies 240 acres (97 ha) and has a sales floor area of 154,000 m2 (1,600,000 ft2) over three levels, making it the fifth-largest shopping centre in the UK (after Westfield London, MetroCentre, Trafford Centre and Westfield Stratford City). Elsewhere in Europe only Istanbul's Cevahir Mall and Vienna's (Vösendorf) Shopping City Süd are bigger. The floor plan is a triangular shape with 330 stores, including 3 anchors, 40 cafés and restaurants, and a 17-screen cinema. The centre employs 7,000 people and serves over 27 million visitors a year. A main rival is the Lakeside Shopping Centre and its two retail parks in West Thurrock, Essex, just across the River Thames, 8 miles (13 km) away by road or 3.2 miles (5.1 km) as the crow flies. It is owned by three major UK institutions: Landsec (55%), Prudential and PRUPIM (35%) and Hermes (10%).

Westwood is a hamlet in the parish of Southfleet in Kent, England, in the west of the parish. It is one mile west of the village of Southfleet. In the 19th century it was one of only two hamlets within the parish (the other being Betsham, in addition to the main village). It lies around the crossroads formed by the Westwood Road (which leads to Betsham), Highcross Road (leads to Bean), Whitehall Road (leads to Longfield), and Hook Green Road (leads to Southfleet village). The Wheatsheaf Public House, near the crossroads, is a Grade II Listed Building. This dates from 15th – 16th century and is a timber-framed building, faced with plaster, with a hipped thatched roof. Nearby is Westwood farm. A quarter of a mile to the south lies the site of the former Longfield Halt railway station.

Swanscombe Skull Site or Swanscombe Heritage Park is a 3.9 hectares (9.6 acres) geological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Swanscombe in north-west Kent, England. It contains two Geological Conservation Review sites and a National Nature Reserve. The park lies in a former gravel quarry, Barnfield Pit. The area was already known for the finds of numerous Palaeolithic-era handaxes—mostly Acheulean and Clactonian artifacts, some as much as 400,000 years old—when in 1935/1936 work at Barnfield Pit uncovered two fossilised skull fragments. These fragments came to be known as the remains of Swanscombe Man but were later found to have belonged to a young woman. The Swanscombe skull has been identified as early Neanderthal or pre-Neanderthal, dating to the Hoxnian Interglacial around 400,000 years ago.The skull fragments were found in the lower middle terrace gravels at a depth of almost 8 metres. They were found by Alvan T. Marston, an amateur archaeologist who visited the pit between quarrying operations to search for flint tools. A third fragment from the same skull was found in 1955 by Bertram and John Wymer. Swanscombe is one of only two sites in Britain that have yielded Lower Paleolithic human fossils, the other being Boxgrove Quarry, West Sussex, where 500,000-year-old leg bones and teeth ("Boxgrove Man") have been found. Further excavations, carried out between 1968 and 1972 by Dr John d'Arcy Waechter, uncovered more animal bone and flint tools and established the extent of the former shoreline on which the bones were found. Most of the bone finds are now in the Natural History Museum in London, with the stone finds at the British Museum. The other key paleolithic sites in the UK are Happisburgh, Pakefield, Pontnewydd, Kents Cavern, Paviland and Gough's Cave.

Betsham is a hamlet in the parish of Southfleet in Kent, England.Betsham is a mile north-west from the village of Southfleet, which is situated nearly in the middle of the parish. The hamlet was formerly called Bedesham and lies on the road that leads from Green Street Green (formerly Greensted-green) in the parish of Darenth to Southfleet railway station and thence to Wingfield-bank, Northfleet where it meets the ancient Roman highway Watling Street (A2 motorway), which runs along the northern side of this parish.Westwood Road links Betsham with Westwood to the south.

Greenhithe is a village in the Borough of Dartford in Kent, England, and the civil parish of Swanscombe and Greenhithe. It is located 4 miles (6.5 kilometres) east of Dartford and 5 miles (8 kilometres) west of Gravesend.

Greenhithe railway station (also known as Greenhithe for Bluewater) serves the village of Greenhithe in north Kent and Bluewater Shopping Centre. It is 19 miles 69 chains (32.0 km) down the line from London Charing Cross. Train services are operated by Southeastern and Thameslink.

Ingress Abbey is a Neo-gothic Jacobean-style country house in Greenhithe, Kent, England, built in 1833 on the site of an earlier Palladian-style house.