Riverhead, Kent

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Riverhead is a northern village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It forms part of the Sevenoaks urban area and lies between Chipstead Lake and the River Darent in the north and Mill Bank Wood in the south. The parish population was 1,821 in 2001 and 2,634 at the 2011 census.

The village name may come from a Saxon word meaning hill or from a term meaning cattle landing place. Riverhead grew in Saxon times as traffic on pilgrim routes between Canterbury and Winchester increased. In the Georgian era it was relatively prosperous, with many households paying Hearth Tax, and it was surrounded by large estates such as Chipstead Place, Bradbourne and Montreal. Local industries included a tannery, a timber yard, smithies and a posting house, while agriculture formed the main economy with some gravel and sand quarrying to the northeast that created the Bradbourne lakes, now a wildfowl reserve.

Riverhead has a central conservation area of about 25 acres with around 30 listed buildings, dating mainly from the 17th to 18th centuries, and older houses from the 19th century. The 1831 Church of England parish church is St Mary the Virgin; designed in a late Georgian lancet style by Decimus Burton, it was extended in 1882 by Arthur William Blomfield, with an east window added in 1905 by Charles Eamer Kempe.

Each year the village holds a Village Fete and Carnival on the common west of the village. The Bullfinch pub, Batchelors butcher (selling Boerewors sausage), and a range of shops line White Hart Parade and London Road, including a gallery, restaurants, a dry cleaners, hairdressers and a power-tools shop. The library offers telecottage services. A Barratt Lakeside Place estate sits by Chipstead Lake on the site of the former Marley Tiles works. TV service is available from the Blue Bell Hill transmitter.

Riverhead has Amherst Primary School and Riverhead Infants. Holmesdale Cricket Club is based here, and the area behind the church includes the sand pits and a nearby sandstone cliff. Riverhead Parkland, part of the former Montreal Park, provides walks and children’s recreation along the Darent valley.

Local government includes a nine-member parish council, representation on Kent County Council (Sevenoaks Central) and on Sevenoaks District Council. The village is about half a mile from Sevenoaks railway station and is served by bus routes 1, 3 and 8 to Sevenoaks and surrounding towns, with a Sunday Go Coach service (401) linking Westerham, Sevenoaks and Tonbridge.