Maidstone, All Saints' Church c.1862

Photo ref: 1481

More about this scene

in this book show a vanished Medway, with timber rafts towed by barges outside the Archbishop's palace, a once-familiar scene of the river as an industrial highway that is no more. Maidstone was the head of navigation of the Medway for centuries. This was because the river's upper reaches were crowded with fisheries and mills that impeded navigation. None the less, by the 1580s the river could be navigated as far upstream as Yalding, six miles above Maidstone. The clearance of the navigation was a very contentious issue in the early 17th century and an Act enabling the building of locks and wharves was not passed until 1664. The navigation was continued upstream to Tonbridge in 1749 and fourteen locks created. The first to be built was at Maidstone. Allington Lock, the lowest of ten on the river today, was originally built in 1792. The lock was enlarged in 1881 and replaced in 1939. Below Allington Lock the Medway is tidal and the character of the river is very different, with a wide expanse of black mud exposed at low tide. A flood control barrier has been constructed next to the lock in a bid to halt the bad flooding which has periodically occurred in the Medway valley. These photographs include an evocative Victorian picture of Allington Lock. The navigation was created for commerce, but today the Medway at Maidstone is essentially a recreational river. Several of these photographs show this aspect, with rowing boats for hire below the Archbishop's Palace, and pleasure boats and cruisers plying the river. Every July Maidstone holds a River Festival.