West Malling home of inter-county cricket in Kent, and it is known that in 1705, "West of Kent" played Chatham at Malling. The setting for the cricket match between All Muggleton and Dingley Dell in Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers is reputed to be based on an amalgamation of the grounds at West Malling and Maidstone. There is a resemblance to West Malling in the original illustration of the match, a version of which featured on the back of the £10 banknote featuring Dickens, first circulated on 29 April 1992. Dickens, however, was a regular visitor to Dingley Hall in the village of
Woolverton Manor to the priory of Carisbrooke, but the manor afterwards passed into the Dineley or Dingley family. I may here observe that Elizabeth, daughter of one John Dingley, married, in 1571, Sir John Leigh, then a youthful gentleman, 25 years old. I cannot help thinking that this marriage led to Sir John's purchase of Noith Court, which was probably effected about ten years later. In the reign of Etizabeth, the manor of Woolverton is said to have contained three hundred acres. At the Revolution, it was purchased by Maurice Hunt and Anthony Morgan, Esqrs. The manor house and principal farm afterwards