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 east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, l ...

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

, 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 The A229 is a major road running north–south through Kent from Rochester to Hawkhurst via Maidstone. It is a former Roman road that ran from Rochester to Hastings. The road is well known for Blue Bell Hill, which connects Rochester to Ma ...

) and Sutton Road ( A274), and west of Willington Street. The area was formerly farmland and orchards. The suburb takes its name from Shepway Court, a country house which stood 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, 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 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 social housing. D ...

Maidstone Borough Council Maidstone is the largest town in Kent, England, of which it is the county town. Maidstone is historically important and lies east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, linking it with Rochester and the T ...

in stages after World War II. 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

Villages in Kent Maidstone {{kent-geo-stub