Penenden Heath is a suburb in the town of

Maidstone Maidstone is the largest Town status in the United Kingdom, town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies 32 miles (51 km) east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the c ...

in Kent, England. As the name suggests it is nucleated around a former

heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler ...

(now park land).

History

Before the expansion of Maidstone, the heath was often used as a venue for a site for shire moots (or assemblies) during the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire ...

. The most famous of these occurred shortly after the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Norman, Breton, Flemish, and French troops, all led by the Duke of Normandy, later styled William the Conq ...

of 1066 and involved a dispute between Odo bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of

William the Conqueror William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England The monarchy of the United Kingdom, ...

and

Lanfranc Lanfranc, OSB (1005 1010 – 24 May 1089) was a celebrated Italian jurist who renounced his career to become a Benedictine monk at Bec in Normandy. He served successively as prior of Bec Abbey and abbot of St Stephen in Normandy and ...

, Archbishop of Canterbury (see

below Below may refer to: *Earth * Ground (disambiguation) * Soil * Floor * Bottom (disambiguation) * Less than *Temperatures below freezing * Hell or underworld People with the surname * Ernst von Below (1863–1955), German World War I general * Fr ...

). The

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

of 1086 subsequently recorded ''Pinnedenna'' as the place for the landowners of Kent to gather to receive notice in matters of administration at the shire court (and, if they did not attend, they should pay forfeiture of "one hundred shillings" to the King).England's Topographer Or A New and Complete History of the County of Kent
by William Henry Ireland The heath was used for local administrative meetings and executions for several hundred years as well as a site for large gatherings of the populace. Wat Tyler led a mob gathered at Penenden Heath to Union Street in

in an early skirmish in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The heath continued to be used as a gathering place in the 16th century to voice popular opinion or to amass the public, in particular during Wyatt's rebellion, and early references to the heath as such were made in

Alfred Tennyson Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 – 6 October 1892) was an English poet. He was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign. In 1829, Tennyson was awarded the Chancellor's Gold Medal at Cambridge for one of hi ...

's 1875 drama ''Queen Mary'' about the 1554 Rebellion. George Goring, Earl of Norwich and leader of the

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

Royalists during the

Second English Civil War The Second English Civil War took place between February to August 1648 in England and Wales. It forms part of the series of conflicts known collectively as the 1639-1651 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which include the 1641–1653 Irish Confeder ...

gathered an army of 7,000 men on Penenden Heath in May 1648 in his unsuccessful defence of the town of Maidstone from the

Roundhead Roundheads were the supporters of the Parliament of England during the English Civil War (1642–1651). Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I of England and his supporters, known as the Cavaliers or Royalists, who ...

army of

Lord Fairfax Thomas Fairfax, 3rd Lord Fairfax of Cameron Lord Fairfax of Cameron is a title in the Peerage of Scotland. Despite holding a Scottish peerage, the Lords Fairfax of Cameron are members of an ancient Yorkshire family, of which the Fairfax baro ...

. Executions took place at the site from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...

period through to the 19th century and suspected

witches Witchcraft traditionally means the use of Magic (supernatural), magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In Middle Ages, medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually ...

are believed to have been tried and hanged on the heath between the 12th and 17th centuries.The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology
by Margaret Alice Murray (Oxford) Clarendon Press 1921 It is reported that, in 1652 at Penenden Heath:

"Anne Ashby, alias Cobler, Anne Martyn, Mary Browne, Anne Wilson, and Mildred Wright of Cranbrook, and Mary Read, of Lenham, being legally convicted, were according to the Laws of this Nation, adjudged to be hanged, at the common place of Execution. Some there were that wished rather, they might be burnt to Ashes; alledging that it was a received opinion among many, that the body of a witch being burnt, her bloud is prevented thereby from becoming hereditary to her Progeny in the same evill."

In 1798 Edward Hasted described the heath as follows:

" at noted plain Pinnenden, now usually called Pickenden heath, a place made famous in early times; the western part is in Maidstone parish, the remainder in this of Boxley. From its situation almost in the middle of the county or shire of Kent, this heath has been time out of mind used for all county meetings, and for the general business of it, the county house for this purpose, a poor low shed, is situated on the north side of it, where the sheriff continues to hold his county court monthly, and where he takes the poll for the members of the county, and for the coroners, the former of which, after a few suffrages is usually adjourned to Maidstone; on a conspicuous hill on the opposite side of the heath, though in Maidstone parish, is the gallows, for the public execution of criminals condemned at the assizes."Parishes: Boxley
''The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent'', Volume 4 by Edward Hasted (1798), pp. 324–353. Date accessed: 6 December 2007

During the 18th and 19th centuries the heath remained a common site for the execution of criminals (by

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary' ...

). The Rev. James Coigly a United Irishman, was arrested en route to France. Upon his arrest, English authorities discovered a letter by the United Britons addressed to the French Revolutionary Government calling for an invasion of England, hidden in Coigly's garments. He was hanged at Penenden Heath, Maidstone on 7 June 1798. The last public execution on the heath took place in 1830, when John Dyke from the nearby village of Bearsted was hanged for burning a rick, although it later emerged he was innocent. New gallows were subsequently built outside

Maidstone Prison HM Prison Maidstone is a Category C men's prison, located in Maidstone, Kent, England. The prison is operated by His Majesty's Prison Service. History Maidstone Prison is one of the oldest penal institutions in the United Kingdom, having been i ...

. In 1828 the heath was again recorded as the site of a large gathering to debate the issue of "Protestant Ascendancy" before the passing of the Catholic Relief Act of 1829. A detailed report of the assembly on 24 October 1828 by

Richard Lalor Sheil Richard Lalor Sheil (17 August 1791 – 23 May 1851), Irish politician, writer and orator, was born at Drumdowney, Slieverue, County Kilkenny, Ireland. The family was temporarily domiciled at Drumdowney while their new mansion at Bellevue, near ...

describes the heath as a "gently sloping amphitheatrical declivity" and still, in the 19th century, the principal venue in the area for massing the populace. However during this time the heath was also used for recreation and was the venue for at least two early examples of county level

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by st ...

matches. Between 31 August and 2 September 1795, a team from Kent played England on the heath with England winning by five

wicket In cricket, the term wicket has several meanings: * It is one of the two sets of three stumps and two bails at either end of the pitch. The fielding team's players can hit the wicket with the ball in a number of ways to get a batsman out. ...

s. Later, on 20 July 1807, "All England" again played Kent at Penenden, with the county winning by 162 runs. During the 19th century the heath was slowly enveloped by the growth of the town of Maidstone, becoming a residential area at the junction of the main routes to

Sittingbourne Sittingbourne is an industrial town in Kent, south-east England, from Canterbury and from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient British trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons and next to the Swale, a strip of sea separ ...

and Boxley. Following

landscaping Landscaping refers to any activity that modifies the visible features of an area of land, including the following: # Living elements, such as flora or fauna; or what is commonly called gardening, the art and craft of growing plants with a goal ...

, the heath was presented to the people of Maidstone by the

Earl of Romney Earl () is a rank of the nobility in the United Kingdom. The title originates in the Old English word ''eorl'', meaning "a man of noble birth or rank". The word is cognate with the Old Norse, Scandinavian form ''jarl'', and meant "Germanic ch ...

in 1882 for use as a recreation ground.

Penenden Trial

Odo de Bayeux Odo of Bayeux (died 1097), Earl of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, was the maternal half-brother of William the Conqueror, and was, for a time, second in power after the King of England. Early life Odo was the son of William the Conqueror's mother ...

was previously

earl of Kent The peerage title Earl of Kent has been created eight times in the Peerage of England and once in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. In fiction, the Earl of Kent is also known as a prominent supporting character in William Shakespeare's traged ...

and the primary landowner of the region subsequent to his half-brother William the Conqueror's invasion of England in 1066. Several years after the invasion in 1070, Archbishop

succeeded to the see of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of ...

and requested an inquiry into the activities of Odo (and Lanfranc's predecessor, Stigand) who had allegedly defrauded the Church (and possibly the

Crown A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...

) during his tenure as Earl of Kent. Lanfranc demanded that the matter should be settled by the nobles of Kent and William I ordered that an assembly be formed at Penenden heath ic/nowiki> for the purpose. Various prominent figures in the country at the time were called including

Geoffrey de Montbray Geoffrey de Montbray (Montbrai, Mowbray) (died 1093), bishop of Coutances ( la, Constantiensis), also known as Geoffrey of Coutances, was a Norman nobleman, trusted adviser of William the Conqueror and a great secular prelate, warrior and admini ...

bishop of Coutances The Roman Catholic Diocese of Coutances (–Avranches) ( Latin: ''Dioecesis Constantiensis (–Abrincensis)''; French: ''Diocèse de Coutances (–Avranches)'') is a diocese of the Roman Catholic Church in France. Its mother church is the Cat ...

(who represented the King), Lanfranc (for the Church), Odo de Bayeux (defending himself),

Arnost Arnost was a medieval Bishop of Rochester. Arnost was a monk at Bec Abbey Bec Abbey, formally the Abbey of Our Lady of Bec (french: Abbaye Notre-Dame du Bec), is a Benedictine monastic foundation in the Eure ''département'', in the Bec valley ...

bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury. The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was fou ...

, Æthelric II

bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East and West Sussex. The see is based in the City of Chichester where the bishop's s ...

(an elderly bishop regarded as the authority on the laws of the realm), Richard de Tunibridge,

Hugh de Montfort Hugh may refer to: *Hugh (given name) Noblemen and clergy French * Hugh the Great (died 956), Duke of the Franks * Hugh Magnus of France (1007–1025), co-King of France under his father, Robert II * Hugh, Duke of Alsace (died 895), modern-day ...

, William de Arsic, Hamo Vicecomes and many others. Precisely when the inquiry was held is unclear although many historians have determined it to be between 1075 and 1077.Feudal Empires: Norman and Plantagenet
by

John Le Patourel John Herbert Le Patourel (29 July 1909 – 22 July 1981) was a British medieval historian and professor at the University of Leeds. Biography Le Patourel was born on 29 July 1909 in Guernsey, where his father, Herbert Augustus Le Patourel, wa ...

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical ...

The trial itself lasted three days and ended in the partial recovery of properties for the church from Odo and others.

20th century

Today a residential suburb of Maidstone, Penenden Heath is situated between arterial roadways at junction 6 of the M20 motorway and the A249

Road. The area includes a variety of shops, a

public house A pub (short for public house) is a kind of drinking establishment which is licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption on the premises. The term ''public house'' first appeared in the United Kingdom in late 17th century, and wa ...

and a

playground A playground, playpark, or play area is a place designed to provide an environment for children that facilitates play, typically outdoors. While a playground is usually designed for children, some are designed for other age groups, or people ...

Toponymy

The heath has been recorded under several names. First appearing in the Domesday Book as ''Pinnedenna'', it has also been recorded as ''Pinnenden'', ''Pickenden'', ''Pinenden'' and ''Pennenden''. It has been suggested that the name derives from the

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country ( Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the No ...

''pinian'' meaning "to punish",
A Handbook for Travellers in Kent and Sussex
' by John Murray (1858) at

, p.87 which may date the site as a place for executions before the

Environment

Certain remnants of the heathland and its environment remain. Mature

lime tree ''Tilia'' is a genus of about 30 species of trees or bushes, native throughout most of the temperate Northern Hemisphere. The tree is known as linden for the European species, and basswood for North American species. In Britain and Ireland they ...

s, with some younger replacements, line the boundaries to the recreation ground. In addition, large oak,

chestnut The chestnuts are the deciduous trees and shrubs in the genus ''Castanea'', in the beech family Fagaceae. They are native to temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. The name also refers to the edible nuts they produce. The unrelate ...

, hawthorn,

sycamore Sycamore is a name which has been applied to several types of trees, but with somewhat similar leaf forms. The name derives from the ancient Greek ' (''sūkomoros'') meaning "fig-mulberry". Species of trees known as sycamore: * '' Acer pseudoplat ...

and

ash tree ''Fraxinus'' (), commonly called ash, is a genus of flowering plants in the olive and lilac family, Oleaceae. It contains 45–65 species of usually medium to large trees, mostly deciduous, though a number of subtropical species are evergr ...

s feature. Heath Wood, which lies just beyond the suburb boundary, is a privately owned chestnut coppice. To the north, dense planting of native trees separates the Heath from the M20 motorway.Maidstone Green Spaces Strategy: Penenden Heath
dated March 2006

Soil Soil, also commonly referred to as earth or dirt, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, liquids, and organisms that together support life. Some scientific definitions distinguish ''dirt'' from ''soil'' by restricting the former ...

at the northern end of the recreation ground displays characteristics of heathland and dry acid grassland. Other areas evidence sheep's sorrel and common heath. Gorse and

broom A broom (also known in some forms as a broomstick) is a cleaning tool consisting of usually stiff fibers (often made of materials such as plastic, hair, or corn husks) attached to, and roughly parallel to, a cylindrical handle, the broomstick. ...

have been introduced in recent years.

References

{{authority control Villages in Kent Defunct cricket grounds in England Cricket grounds in Kent