Penenden Heath is a suburb of 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 east-south-east of London. The River Medway runs through the centre of the town, l ...

in the English county of

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 ...

. As the name suggests, it was developed on an area of heathland, an area of which remains as a recreation ground with some woodland.

History

Before the expansion of Maidstone, the heath was used as a venue for shire moots during the early

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

. 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 Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

of 1066 and involved the Trial of Penenden Heath, a dispute between Odo bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of

William the Conqueror William the Conqueror (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), sometimes called William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England (as William I), reigning from 1066 until his death. A descendant of Rollo, he was D ...

, and Lanfranc the

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

. 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

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.England's Topographer Or A New and Complete History of the County of Kent
by William Henry Ireland The heath continued to be used as a gathering ground for several hundred years.

Wat Tyler Wat Tyler (1341 or – 15 June 1381) was a leader of the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in Kingdom of England, England. He led a group of rebels from Canterbury to City of London, London to oppose the collection of a Tax per head, poll tax and to dem ...

led a mob gathered at Penenden Heath to Union Street in Maidstone in an early skirmish during the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The heath continued to be used as a gathering place in the 16th century, in particular during Wyatt's rebellion in 1554; the heath was referenced in Alfred Tennyson's 1875 drama ''Queen Mary'' about the rebellion. George Goring, Earl of Norwich and leader of the Kent Royalists during the

Second English Civil War The Second English Civil War took place between February and August 1648 in Kingdom of England, England and Wales. It forms part of the series of conflicts known collectively as the 1639–1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms, which include the 164 ...

gathered an army of 7,000 men on the heath in May 1648 as part of his unsuccessful defence of Maidstone against 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

Thomas Fairfax Sir Thomas Fairfax (17 January 1612 – 12 November 1671) was an English army officer and politician who commanded the New Model Army from 1645 to 1650 during the English Civil War. Because of his dark hair, he was known as "Black Tom" to his l ...

. 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 Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829. A detailed report of the assembly on 24 October 1828 by Richard Lalor Sheil 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. Executions took place at the site from the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

period through to the 19th century, and suspected

witches Witchcraft is the use of magic by a person called a witch. Traditionally, "witchcraft" means the use of magic to inflict supernatural harm or misfortune on others, and this remains the most common and widespread meaning. According to ''Enc ...

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 In 1652 it was reported that:

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 site for the execution of criminals by

hanging Hanging is killing a person by suspending them from the neck with a noose or ligature strangulation, ligature. Hanging has been a standard method of capital punishment since the Middle Ages, and has been the primary execution method in numerou ...

. James Coigly, a United Irishman, was arrested en route to France carrying a letter addressed to the French Revolutionary Government calling for an invasion of England. He was hanged at the heath 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 hayrick; it later emerged that he was innocent. New gallows were subsequently built outside Maidstone Prison. The heath was also used for recreation. By the end of the 18th century,

cricket Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

was being played on the heath and it was the venue for at least two early examples of county-level matches. Kent sides played against England XIs on the heath in both 1795 and 1807.Milton H (1992) ''Cricket Grounds of Kent'', pp. 17–18; p. 101. Nottingham: The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians.
Available online
Retrieved 4 April 2022.) 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 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 in 1882 for use as a recreation ground.

Penenden trial

Odo de Bayeux 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 tragedy K ...

and the primary landowner of the region after his half-brother William the Conqueror's invasion of England in 1066. In 1070, Archbishop Lanfranc succeeded to the see of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, in the county of Kent, England; it was a county borough until 1974. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. The city has a mild oceanic climat ...

and requested an inquiry into the activities of Odo (and Lanfranc's predecessor, Stigand) who had allegedly defrauded the Church (and possibly the Crown) 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 for the purpose. Various prominent figures in the country at the time were called including

Geoffrey de Montbray Geoffrey de Montbray (died 1093), also known as Montbrai, Mowbray or Geoffrey of Coutances, was a Normans, Norman nobleman, :wikt:secular, secular prelate, warrior and administrator who was Bishop of Coutances from 1049 to 1093. He was an adviser ...

bishop of Coutances (who represented the King), Lanfranc (for the Church), Odo de Bayeux (defending himself), Arnost

bishop of Rochester The Bishop of Rochester is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury. The town of Rochester, Kent, Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Rochester Cathedral, Cathedral Chur ...

Æthelric II Æthelric (died ) was the second to last medieval List of bishops of Chichester and precursor offices, Bishop of Selsey in England before the see was moved to Chichester. Consecration, Consecrated a bishop in 1058, he was deposed in 1070 for unk ...

bishop of Chichester The Bishop of Chichester is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chichester in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the counties of East Sussex, East and West Sussex. The Episcopal see, see is based in t ...

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

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

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 The M20 is a Controlled-access highway, motorway in Kent, England. It follows on from the A20 road (England), A20 at Swanley, meeting the M25 motorway, M25, and continuing on to Folkestone, providing a link to the Channel Tunnel and the ports a ...

and the A249 Sittingbourne Road. The area includes a variety of shops, a

public house A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...

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 wi ...

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, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...

''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

Areas of heathland 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 Great Britain and Irelan ...

s, with some younger replacements, line the boundaries to the recreation ground. In addition, large oak, chestnut, hawthorn, sycamore and ash trees feature on the site. Heath Wood, which lies just beyond the suburb boundary, is a privately owned chestnut

coppice Coppicing is the traditional method in woodland management of cutting down a tree to a tree stump, stump, which in many species encourages new Shoot (botany), shoots to grow from the stump or roots, thus ultimately regrowing the tree. A forest ...

. 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, is a mixture of organic matter, minerals, gases, water, and organisms that together support the life of plants and soil organisms. Some scientific definitions distinguish dirt from ''soil'' by re ...

at the northern end of the recreation ground displays characteristics of heathland and dry

acid An acid is a molecule or ion capable of either donating a proton (i.e. Hydron, hydrogen cation, H+), known as a Brønsted–Lowry acid–base theory, Brønsted–Lowry acid, or forming a covalent bond with an electron pair, known as a Lewis ...

grassland. Other areas evidence sheep's sorrel and common heath. Gorse and

broom A broom (also known 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. It is thus a ...

have been introduced in recent years.

References

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