Staplehurst Monarchs F.C.

Royal Air Force Staplehurst or more simply RAF Staplehurst is a former Royal Air Force Advanced Landing Ground located in Kent, England. The airfield is located approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) northeast of Staplehurst; about 38 miles (61 km) southeast of London. Opened in 1943, Staplehurst was a prototype for temporary Advanced Landing Grounds built in France after D-Day, and as the Allied forces moved east across France and Germany. It was used by the Royal Air Force, Canadian and the United States Army Air Forces. It was closed in September 1944. Today the airfield is a mixture of agricultural fields with no recognisable remains, except a memorial now near the site.

Staplehurst is a town and civil parish in the borough of Maidstone in Kent, England, 9 miles (14 km) south of the town of Maidstone and with a population of 6,003. The village lies on the route of a Roman road, which is now incorporated into the course of the A229. The name Staplehurst comes from the Old English 'stapol' meaning a 'post, pillar' and 'hyrst', as a 'wooded hill'; therefore, 'wooded-hill at a post', a possible reference to a boundary marker at the position of All Saints' church atop the hill along the road from Maidstone to Cranbrook. The parish includes the hamlet of Hawkenbury.

All Saints Church is a parish church in the village of Staplehurst, Kent, England. It is a Grade I listed building.

Staplehurst railway station is on the South Eastern Main Line in England, serving the village of Staplehurst, Kent. It is 41 miles 70 chains (67.4 km) down the line from London Charing Cross . The station and all trains that serve the station are operated by Southeastern. The station opened in August 1842. It is well known for the Staplehurst rail crash on 9 June 1865 on which Charles Dickens was a passenger.

The Staplehurst rail crash was a derailment at Staplehurst, Kent, on 9 June 1865 at 3:13 pm. The South Eastern Railway Folkestone to London boat train derailed while crossing a viaduct where a length of track had been removed during engineering works, killing ten passengers and injuring forty. In the Board of Trade report it was found that a man had been placed with a red flag 554 yards (507 m) away but the regulations required him to be 1,000 yards (910 m) away and the train had insufficient time to stop. Charles Dickens, 53 years old at the time, was travelling with Ellen Ternan and her mother on the train; they all survived the derailment. He tended the victims, some of whom died while he was with them. The experience affected Dickens greatly; he lost his voice for two weeks and afterwards was nervous when travelling by train, using alternative means when available. Dickens died five years to the day after the accident; his son said that he had never fully recovered.

The South Eastern Main Line is a major long-distance railway route in South East England, UK, one of the three main routes crossing the county of Kent, going via Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Ashford and Folkestone to Dover. The other routes are the Chatham Main Line which runs along the north Kent coast to Ramsgate or Dover via Chatham and High Speed 1 which runs through the centre of Kent to the coast at Folkestone where it joins the Channel Tunnel.

Hawkenbury is a hamlet in the Maidstone district of Kent, England, in the civil parish of Staplehurst. Hawkenbury is approximately 2 miles north-east of Staplehurst and 2 miles north-west of Headcorn. Amenities include a pub with rooms, campsite and garden centre.

Maidstone and The Weald is a constituency in Kent represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2010 by Helen Grant of the Conservative Party. She succeeded fellow party member Ann Widdecombe, who had held the seat since it was created for the 1997 general election. Further to the completion of the 2023 Periodic Review of Westminster constituencies, the seat will be subject to boundary changes, losing southern, rural areas ("The Weald") to the newly created constituency of Weald of Kent. To compensate, it will gain parts of the Borough of Tonbridge and Malling, including the town of West Malling. As a consequence, it will be renamed Maidstone and Malling, to be first contested at the next general election.

Frittenden is a village and civil parish in the Tunbridge Wells District of Kent, England. The parish is located on the flood plain of one of the tributaries of the River Medway, 15 miles (24 km) to the east of Tunbridge Wells: the village is three miles (4.8 km) south of Headcorn. It is in a very rural part of Kent. The parish church is dedicated to St Mary.

Moatenden Priory was a priory located at Headcorn, about six miles south of Maidstone in Kent, England.

Marden Meadows is a 3.7-hectare (9.1-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest east of Marden in Kent. Part of the site is in the 5.6-hectare (14-acre) Marden Meadow nature reserve, which is owned and managed by Kent Wildlife Trust.These unimproved neutral meadows are cut for hay each year and then grazed. There are also ponds and hedgerows which are probably of ancient origin, and trees include midland hawthorns and wild service-trees.There is public access to the nature reserve, but the rest of the site is private land with no public access.

Sissinghurst Park Wood is a 31.1-hectare (77-acre) biological Site of Special Scientific Interest north-east of Sissinghurst Kent.This wood is mainly sweet chestnut coppice, and the importance of the site lies in the number of rare plants found in its rides. It is the most eastern locality in Britain for ivy-leaved bellflower.The site is private with no public access.