Geology of Kent to uplift, sedimentation, and marine erosion. The Isle of Thanet was till recently (AD 960) an island, formed around a deposit of chalk. The channels silted up with alluvium. Similarly Romney Marsh and Dungeness have been formed by accumulation of alluvium. Kent's principal river, the River Medway, rises near Edenbridge and flows some 25 miles (40 km) eastwards to a point near Maidstone, when it turns north. Here it breaks through the North Downs at Rochester before joining the River Thames as its final tributary near Sheerness. The river is tidal as far as Allington lock, but in earlier times
Maidstone was reported at the time that inhabitants were bitterly opposed to the railway, the mayor suggesting that "Maidstone will be ruined as a commercial town". It was said that wharfingers and corn and coal merchants would be hardest hit. In 1842, the South Eastern Railway, to reach the Channel ports of Folkestone and Dover, put its main line through Tonbridge and Ashford, some to the south. A station named Maidstone Road was built in an isolated spot called Paddock Wood, from where coaches were run to the county town. Two years later a branch line was built to Maidstone. In