Maidstone, the county and assize town of Kent, is seated on the right bank of the Medway, 34 miles ESE. of London by road (41½ by rail), and 25 W. of Canterbury. At its west entrance, overlooking the river, which is spanned by a three-arch stone bridge, built 1877-79 at a cost of £55,000, stand the picturesque remains of All-Saints' College (of which William Grocyn was once master), originally established in 1260 as a hospital for pilgrims travelling to Canterbury, and, like all other institutions of the same kind, suppressed in the reign of Edward VI. Close by is All-Saints' Church, a fine example of the Perpendicular style, built towards the end of the 14th century, and restored 1860; its interior is 227 feet long, and contains many interesting monuments and brasses, and a fine organ (1880). From the tower, 78 feet high, formerly rose a spire of 94 feet, which was destroyed by lightning in 1731. To the north of this, the principal of Maidstone's ten churches, are schools of art and music, occupying a former palace of the archbishops of Canterbury; and other features of interest comprise a grammar-school, at which Sir Egerton Brydges was educated, founded 1549, and rebuilt on a new site, 1871; museum and public library, established 1858 in Chillington House, where, too, are the headquarters of the Kent Archaeological Society; town-hall (1764); county gaol (1812-19), built of Kentish ragstone, obtained from adjacent quarries; hospital (1832-89); cavalry and militia barracks; corn exchange (1835); ophthalmic hospital (1851-69); and a public park on Penenden Heath to the NE. of the town, where formerly were held the county elections and other great meetings. Lining the river-banks are numerous paper-mills and a large oil-mill, whilst several breweries are in operation, and an important traffic is carried on in hops. Maidstone returned two members to parliament till 1885, when the number was reduced to one, and was first incorporated as a municipal borough in 1548; it gives the inferior title of viscount to the Earl of Winchelsea. Pop. (1801) 8027; (1831) 15,387; (1881) 29,623; (1891) 32,145. The history of the town is bound up with that of Kent (q.v.), the only special incidents identified with Maidstone being its storming in 1648 by Fairfax, when garrisoned by a royalist force, which only surrendered after a desperate resistance. Woollett the engraver, Hazlitt the essayist, and Newman Hall were natives; and Sir Thomas Wyatt the poet, and his son, the rebel, lived at Allington Castle, 2 miles distant. There was a terrible visitation of typhoid fever in September and October 1897, due—as was proved—to defective and polluted water-supply.
See works by J. M. Russell (1881) and Rev. J. Cave-Browne (1889).