Borough Green
Coordinates: 51°17′29″N 0°18′22″E / 51.291300°N 0.306200°E
Borough Green is a large village and civil parish in the Tonbridge and Malling district of Kent, England. The main village is situated on the A25 road between Maidstone and Sevenoaks in Kent.
History
The village's name describes what it originally was – the green to which the people of what was then the borough of Wrotham went for recreation. There is also a view that "borough", which predates any borough council in the area, relates to barrow, possibly referring to the Roman remains near the station site. Its location at a crossroads (the old route from Gravesend to Hastings crossed here) meant that inns were gradually opened:
- 1586 Red Lion (now closed)
- 1592 Black Bull, later the Black Horse, now known as the "Black Horse and Hooden"
- 1753 The Bull
- 1837 Fox & Hounds (now converted into private housing)
- 1860 The Rock (now converted into private housing)
- 1878 The Railway Hotel, later The Henry Simmonds (now closed)
Great Comp, an early 17th-century house, is located in the parish of St Mary's Platt, one mile to the east of the village. Its gardens, administered by a charitable trust, are open to the public.
The London, Chatham and Dover Railway opened its line to Maidstone on 1 June 1874, and a station named Wrotham and Borough Green was built. Later the names were reversed to Borough Green and Wrotham, in line with the position of the station within Borough Green, and the fact that Borough Green had outgrown Wrotham.
The River Bourne flows through the southern part of the parish. It once powered a paper mill at Basted.
Famous people
- Catherine Crowe (1803–1876), novelist and playwright, was born Catherine Ann Stevens in Borough Green.[1]
- Richard Hearne (1908–1979), actor, comedian and writer, most famous as Mr Pastry a comical children's character, lived at Platt's Farm, Long Mill Lane in nearby St Mary Platt from the 1940s.[2]
- Richard Dixon, a chemist who has done notable work on the thermal and optical properties of matter, was born in Borough Green on 25 December 1930.[3]
Sports
Potters Football Club of the Sevenoaks & District Premier Division is the village's foremost sports team. Potters FC currently operates one men's team, although it has close ties with Borough Green Junior Football Club, who runs teams from U7s through to U18s. Potters FC was founded in 2007 by the lifelong village resident and current manager, Henry Willard. It plays home games at its original ground of Potters Mede, on the A227 main road on the border of Borough Green and Wrotham. The club's home strip is white shirts/black shorts/black socks, whilst its away strip is dark blue and black striped shirts/black shorts/black socks.[4]
Another sports team in the village is Borough Green Junior Football Club.
Churches
There are four churches in Borough Green:
- Anglican (Church of England): The Church of the Good Shepherd, Quarry Hill Road
- Baptist (Association of Grace Baptist Churches): Borough Green Baptist Church, High Street
- Roman Catholic: St Joseph's, Western Road
- Liberty Church: Pentecostal Church, meeting in the Village Hall
Schools
- Borough Green Primary School
Nearest settlements
 |
Romney Street and West Kingsdown | Wrotham | Trottiscliffe | |
| Ightham |  |
Platt and Wrotham Heath | ||
| ||||
 | ||||
| Hatch | Basted, Claygate Cross | Plaxtol |
References
- ↑ ODNB: Joanne Wilkes, "Crowe, Catherine Ann..." Retrieved 22 September 2010, pay-walled.
- ↑ Kent and Sussex Courier, 15 October 2010. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
- ↑ ″Richard N. Dixon″, Academic Family Tree. Retrieved 13 March 2014.
- ↑ The clubs' official website is .
The Kent Village Book, Alan Bignell (Countryside Books, 1986). Borough Green Primary School website, (Accessed 03/03.2008) Borough Green Past and Present Published 1994. In K.C.C. library
External links
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to Borough Green. |
