History - Knightrider Street

Although first recorded by name in 1600 this must have been one of the earliest roads in the area leading to the fording point on the River Medway. It was probably the site of Medieval houses, one of which (Digons) survived until 1964 – this dated from the 13^th Century. Its boundary wall and some fragmentary remains still exist around the modern office block of Chaucer House. In the mid 17^th Century Lawrence Washington, an ancestor of George Washing, lived in Knightrider Street – he is buried in All Saints Church where his monument displays the family coat of arm of three stars and two stripes which is said to be the inspiration behind the design of the American flag.

By the late 16^th/early 17^th Century this was a favoured area of town where the gentry built town houses. There is one fine surviving house from the early 18^th Century – Knightrider House – which was the home from 1769 of William Shipley, who founded the Royal Society of Arts.  Shipley is buried in All Saints churchyard.

The Baptist Church, a good example of Edwardian free Gothic design, built in 1907, occupies the site of the workhouse erected in 1720, which became the Bluecoat School when the workhouse moved to new premises at Coxheath in 1836.