Medway Navigation Medway Navigation The River Medway in England flows for from Turners Hill, in West Sussex, through Tonbridge, Maidstone and the Medway Towns conurbation in Kent, to the River Thames at Sheerness, where it shares the latter's estuary. The Medway Navigation runs from the Leigh Barrier south of Tonbridge to Allington just north of Maidstone. It is in length. The Environment Agency is the navigation authority responsible for the navigation. Until 1746 the river was impassable above Maidstone. To that point each village on the river had its wharf or wharves: at Halling, Snodland, New Hythe and Aylesford. Cargoes included corn,
Maidstone the Hermitage Millennium Amphitheatre. Maidstone is mentioned several times in Ian Fleming's 1955 James Bond novel, "Moonraker". Villain Hugo Drax passes through King Street and Gabriels Hill and later stops at the Thomas Wyatt Hotel. Writer Jack London recounts his visit to Maidstone in his 1903 book "The People of the Abyss". Whilst living in the slums of London in the summer of 1902, he heads to Maidstone in search of hop-picking work up the London Road. He finds lodgings with a "Sea Wife" living in the poor quarter of Maidstone, and persuades her and her husband to let him