History - High Street, Maidstone

High Street (High Town)

Until 1707 the top part of the High Street was known as High Town.  This broad space formed the town’s market place from at least 1261 until the 1820’s when the Market Buildings were built in space between the High Street and Earl Street.  The market cross formerly stood roughly where the statue of Queen Victoria now stands.

Middle Row, beyond the Town Hall, originated as an encroachment on the marketing place which happened before the mid 15^th Century. The Town Hall itself is a fine building of 1762/3, originally partially open on the ground floor.  It contains a finely decorated Council Chamber and some interesting 18^th Century cells with prisoners’ graffiti.

A number of late Medieval buildings survive, often behind more modern facades, and some examples of stone vaulted cellars survive.  The typically narrow medieval “burgage plots” can still often be recognised, even where buildings have been redeveloped.  Other more recent buildings also deserve attention – the massive building now occupied by The Muggleton Inn was built in 1827 as the headquarters of the Kent Fire and Life Insurance Company to the designs of John Whichcord, and features a magnificent giant order of Ionic columns, whilst nos. 93-95 opposite is a building of circa 1855 by Whichcord’s son which is an interesting example of an early iron framed building faced with glazed tiles.  The statue of Queen Victoria of circa 1862 is the work of the famous sculptor John Thomas.

Lower High Street

The lower High Street was the location of at least two of the towns markets until the early 19^th Century – the shambles (meat market) was situated on the west end of Middle Row, and below was a butter market provided with an octagonal shelter in 1806.

In the middle of the broad street can be seen a Russian gun captured at Sebastopol during the Crimean War which was presented to the town by Lord Pamure, the Secretary of War and George Wickham, the Mayor of Maidstone, in 1885.  Some of Maidstone’s leading coaching inns were situated in this part of the town but most are now closed down, although the buildings mainly still exist.  No. 37 was formerly the Rose and Crown, and its carriage arch is still visible. Nos. 62-64, now in part a nightclub was the Queen’s Head, which in the early 19^th Century housed the General Coach Office and from which a fast coach to London (“The Balloon”) left every morning at 9am for Oxford Street, with a fare of 10 shillings (outside passengers 6 shillings).  The Royal Star (now a shopping arcade) presents an 18^th Century front to the street, but is basically a 16^th Century structure which was Maidstone’s leading hostelry in the 17^th Century.  In 1837, Benjamin Disraeli addressed the electors from its balcony on the occasion of the winning of his first seat in Parliament as the town’s MP.

The lower end of the High Street was frequently flooded by the Medway until flood prevention works were carried out on the river in the mid 20^th Century.