Shepway is a suburb to the south-east 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 ...

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 ...

, England. It lies to the south of

Mote Park Mote Park is a multi-use public park in Maidstone, Kent. Previously a country estate it was converted to landscaped park land at the end of the 18th century before becoming a municipal park. It includes the former stately home Mote House toget ...

, to the east of Loose Road (

A229 A, or a, is the first Letter (alphabet), letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, Latin alphabet, used in the English alphabet, modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name ...

) and Sutton Road ( A274) and west of Willington Street. The land was formerly farmland and orchards. The suburb takes its name from Shepway Court a country house located where the road of that name is today.

History

Construction of the suburb started in the 1930s with the building of South Park Road, the western ends of Plains Avenue and Marion Crescent and Cranborne Avenue (originally named Shepway Avenue) and parts of Brockenhurst, Ringwood and Lyndhurst Roads. The majority of the suburb was constructed as a

council estate Public housing in the United Kingdom, also known as council estates, council housing, or social housing, provided the majority of rented accommodation until 2011 when the number of households in private rental housing surpassed the number in so ...

Maidstone Borough Council Maidstone is the largest 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 centre of the town, linking it wit ...

in stages after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

.http://www.localhistories.org/maidstone.html Local Histories Later, Maidstone Phases of infill construction continued up to the present. The original grid of roads laid out for the council estate after World War II bear names of traditional English counties (for example Northumberland Road, Cambridge Crescent, Hampshire Drive, Rutland Way and Nottingham Avenue). The estate was originally planned with large areas of open land for recreation, although later building has encroached on some of this space.

Transport

Bus 85 runs between Shepway and central Maidstone.

Notable residents

During the 1950s and 1960s the lead partner at the estate's medical centre was Dr Alan Barnsley, better known as the award-winning novelist and poet

Gabriel Fielding Alan Gabriel Barnsley (pen name Gabriel Fielding, 25 March 1916 – 27 November 1986) was an English novelist whose works include: ''In the Time of Greenbloom'', ''The Birthday King'', ''Through Streets Broad and Narrow'' and ''The Women of Gui ...

References

External links

Villages in Kent Maidstone {{kent-geo-stub