Penenden Heath
| Penenden Heath | |
|---|---|
 The remnants of Penenden Heath, now a recreation ground |
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 Penenden Heath
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| Penenden Heath shown within Kent | |
| OS grid reference | TQ771575 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Maidstone |
| Postcode district | ME14 |
| Dialling code | 01622 |
| Police | Kent |
| Fire | Kent |
| Ambulance | South East Coast |
| EU Parliament | South East England |
Penenden Heath is a suburb in the town of Maidstone in Kent, England. As the name suggests it is nucleated around a former heath (now park land).
Before the expansion of Maidstone, the heath was often used as a venue for a site for Shire Moots (or assemblies) during the Middle Ages. The most famous of these occurred shortly after the Norman Conquest of 1066 and involved a dispute between Odo bishop of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror and Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury (see below). The Domesday Book of 1086 subsequently recorded Pinnedenna as the place for the landowners of Kent to gather to receive notice in matters of administration at the Shire Court (and, if they did not attend, they should pay forfeiture of "one hundred shillings" to the King).
The heath was used for local administrative meetings and executions for several hundred years as well as a site for large gatherings of the populace. Wat Tyler led a mob gathered at Penenden Heath to Union Street in Maidstone in an early skirmish in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. The heath continued to be used as a gathering place in the 16th century to voice popular opinion or to amass the public, in particular during Wyatt's rebellion, and early references to the heath as such were made in Alfred Tennyson's 1875 drama Queen Mary about the 1554 Rebellion.George Goring, Earl of Norwich and leader of the Kent Royalists during the Second English Civil War gathered an army of 7,000 men on Penenden Heath in May 1648 in his unsuccessful defence of the town of Maidstone from the Roundhead army of Lord Fairfax.
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