Bearsted Bearsted Bearsted ( , ) is a village and civil parish with railway station in mid-Kent, England, two miles (3.2 km) east of Maidstone town centre. The village was historically concentrated around Church Lane and The Green which includes The Street. The village is on the north bank of the River Len, a tributary of the River Medway at the foot of the North Downs. A stream, the Lilk, flows south into the river Len through Bearsted. Although part of the growing conurbation of Maidstone, the centre of Bearsted retains a traditional village look with 59 listed properties, many surrounding
Borough of Maidstone earliest in the county – that to Rochester and Chatham – was opened in 1728. In modern times, two motorways – the M2 and the M20 – pass to the far north of the borough and just north of the town centre of Maidstone respectively. The earliest line through Kent was built by the South Eastern Railway. It was not, however, built to pass through Maidstone: instead, a station was built at Paddock Wood railway station, then named "Maidstone Road", some six miles away. It was only in the period between 1844 (when that main line was connected by a