History – Kings Hill

ABOUT KINGS HILL

History

It is almost unimaginable today that the skies above this aspirational new community were, for nearly three decades, the battlements of Britain’s fighter fortress. But nearly 80 years ago there was a different sort of community built where Kings Hill now stands: RAF West Malling – a place of fighter planes and defiant courage in the face of sudden death – a place of landings.

**Notification of works to preserve Kings Hill’s Pickett Hamilton – a rare scheduled ancient monument**

Works are underway to preserve Kings Hill’s Pickett Hamilton which is a rare scheduled ancient monument and, together with the Bofors Light anti-aircraft gun tower and type 24 pillbox, registered on 23.11.2001 number 34304, part of the RAF West Malling Fighter Station. The Pickett Hamilton takes pride of place within the new public park. The works involve lifting the inner section of the fort to its raised/firing position, repairing any damage to the concrete structure and cleaning and waxing the internal hydraulic lifting gear. Paving will be installed around the fort creating a performance space which addresses the amphitheatre. The work is being undertaken in close liaison with Historic England in accordance with the scheduled monument consent granted.

Preserved within the landscape, the fort was installed to provide defense of the runway which was located there. The sunken structure consists of two, vertically sunk concrete cylinders, one inside the other. The inner cylinder, the lifting head, was pierced with three apertures for Vickers or Bren guns and was designed to raise its firing position by means of a pneumatic jack, supplemeted by a manual jack for emergency use. There was an access hatch in the lid of the lifting head through which the crew of two men entered at ground level. A second fort was removed from the airfield in 1983 and survives on display at the Imperial War Museum, Duxford.

Middle Ages

During the Middle Ages, Kings Wood, as it was known, was an area of coppiced wood and farmland which provided rich pickings as a medieval hunting ground.

In 941 King Edmund gave it to Abbey Church in Rochester. It later passed to St Mary’s Abbey in West Malling and provided the nuns there with boar’s heads and bees wax to pay their tithes.

With the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the land passed into private ownership and coppiced wood from here was used for hop poles and fences and later for charcoal. By the mid nineteenth century, the site was called Kings Hill Wood and Abbey Woods and the whole area cultivated as woodland.

1940’s

World War II

RAF West Malling was both the front line and the last line of Britain’s defences during World War II and beyond. Above the fields – now full of homes, schools and businesses – the future of the world was being measured out in the skill of young pilots and their flying machines.

1960’s

Night Fighters

It remained in use until the early 1960’s as Britain’s premier night fighter station and then became home to several squadrons of the US navy. In 1964, the US navy transferred and West Malling was returned to the RAF. Annual air shows celebrated its illustrious past, until it eventually fell empty. Its heroic past was a dim memory until its revival by Kent County Council and Liberty Property Trust.

1989 to the present day

A Place of Landings

Together, Liberty Property Trust and Kent County Council, restored the heart of the base, including the Grade II listed control tower. Then they restored its place in the hearts of those who came to live there. Kings Hill has now become a place of new landings, new opportunities.
A sense of belonging, of purpose, still runs though the Kings Hill community and new generations have the chance to share in the part their home played in Britain’s history.

Present Day

Kings Hill’s connection with its history inspired a public art commission – A Place of Landings, a series of artworks by artist Richard Wolfstrome. These include brass roundels embedded in the paving close to the Control Tower featuring the aircraft which flew from the former airfield, and from which future generations may take brass rubbings.

Nearby, a giant glass and metal RAF roundel, which is illuminated at night, features the slang used by the airmen who served there to make light of the grim tasks set for them. Another roundel surrounds a place for people to sit and reflect on the memories gathered from the community and picked out in bronze text.