Rochester and Strood (UK Parliament constituency) Rochester and Strood (UK Parliament constituency) Rochester and Strood is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Kelly Tolhurst, a Conservative. Rochester and Strood constituency is an urban and rural area in north Kent situated alongside the River Medway, which joins the Thames Estuary, becoming a wide salty and sea-like waterway at its northern river mouth. It spans two of the five Medway Towns: Rochester and Strood, and the villages in Strood Rural Ward and on the Hoo Peninsula. Medway (or Medway Towns) is the collective name for the municipal area, one
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