Royal Tunbridge Wells small districts, "named after the hills on which they stand, Mount Ephraim, Mount Pleasant and Mount Sion; the other is called the Wells..." The 1680s saw a building boom in the town: carefully planned shops were built beside the long Pantiles promenade (then known as the Walks), and the Mount Sion road, on which lodging house keepers were to build, was laid out in small plots. Tradesmen in the town dealt in the luxury goods demanded by their patrons, which would certainly have included Tunbridge ware, a kind of decoratively inlaid woodwork. "They have made the wells very commodious by
Royal Tunbridge Wells flows between Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks, and between Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge, have grown considerably faster, though are still much smaller than the flows between Tunbridge Wells and London. Kent County Council is one of fifteen local authorities in the UK that still provides selective education through the eleven plus exam. Royal Tunbridge Wells does not have a university of its own, but the Salomons Campus of Canterbury Christ Church University is located just outside the town (near Southborough) and provides postgraduate programmes. Tunbridge Wells' football team, Tunbridge Wells F.C., plays in the Southern Counties East Football League at the