Tucked away in the English countryside is a village of record-breaking proportions. Milo Boyd went to check out if the rumours were true and if he could make it to the other end
“Is it true what they say about Meopham?” I asked the friendly landlady of the Railway Tavern.
“Of course it is,” she winked, before warning me that I better get going if I was going to make it before the sun went down.
Tucked away just over the Greater London boundary in Kent is a village of record-breaking proportions. It’s not the kind of record that can be found in the Guinness annuals, or is even known by some locals. “No mate,” the man in the kebab shop said when I asked if he knew. “I’ve not heard that one,” a dog walker told me.
Meopham is, according to some sources (including the publican), the longest village in the UK, maybe even in Europe, and possibly the World. From its northernmost tip over the railway tracks to the southernmost end by Wrotham, Meopham stretches seven miles. By way of comparison, Sunderland’s longest side is just under five miles. If you were running the London Marathon, you’d have a Meopham’s length between you and Buckingham Palace as you staggered through Canary Wharf.
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On a cold Thursday in November, I set off south from the train station to see if I could take on this mammoth road trip from one end of Meopham to the other.
Straight away, I was met with a row of shops to my left, including the Railway Tavern (the first of four pubs) and a newsagent. A few hundred metres further along, a kebab shop, estate agents, and mechanics appear, followed by a school. Things really get going roughly two miles from the beginning of the village, when the tree-lined A-road opens up into a large green surrounded by two pleasant-looking pubs and crested with a well-poppied war memorial.
With the sun coming down and the temperature falling with it, I cycled on, up the hill, past mile three, four and five, clusters of houses, shops and stables popping up along the way. A little bit further and I had reached maximum altitude – 150 m above sea level – and with it, the end of the village.
There isn’t much to mark the transition from Meopham to whatever lies beyond. Merely a national speed limit road sign and a plastic skeleton hung in a bush, presumably left over from Halloween. But I had made it.
As I stood at the top of the village, gazing down at the countryside beyond, I was left with two prevailing thoughts. The first is that the majority of the UK’s villages are far less quaint than the bucolic image that comes to mind. Certainly, Meopham’s green is pleasant and its pubs look cosy, but the houses are gated whoppers and the road running down its centre delivers a constant smoggy roar that rips through any sense of tranquillity. Most of the British villages I’ve visited have the same problem: namely, too many cars.
The second is that maybe Meopham isn’t actually a single village, but four – Meopham Green, Culverstone, Dodmore and Hook Green – fused together at some point long ago by someone keen for it to be properly on the map.
It’s up to a parish council to officially denote its settlement as a village or not, and at some point in its past, that’s what happened in Meopham. It also happened in Brinkworth in Wiltshire, which makes the same lengthy claim. Although at 4.2 miles, I think we’re safe to ignore that.
All of this leads to a very obvious question: what makes a village a village, and a town a town?
In the settlement hierarchy, the humble hamlet sits at the bottom. It is fairly well established that a hamlet is a small, rural settlement, typically lacking a central church or a village hall. Once it gets a church, it becomes a village.
The progression from town to city is equally uncontroversial. After acquiring a cathedral, a university, and an array of other significant public buildings, large towns may be granted city status by the monarch through a royal charter. That honour was recently bestowed on Doncaster, Wrexham, Milton Keynes, and a few other hefty former towns.
However, what separates a village from a town is not as clear. While you might think the UK would have a solid definition by now, neither the National Planning Policy Framework nor the national planning practice guidance provides one. “Instead, we’re left with a delightful mix of historical interpretations, local authority classifications, and the occasional dictionary reference,” notes planning organisation Land Tech.
The House of Commons Library’s research briefing City & Town Classification of Constituencies & Local Authorities (2018) attempted to shed some light on the different classifications with the following population guides:
- Villages and small communities: Under 7,500 residents
- Small towns: 7,500 to 24,999 residents
- Medium towns: 25,000 to 59,999 residents
- Large towns: 60,000 to 174,999 residents
- Cities: 175,000+ residents
However, this isn’t a hard and fast system, as many cities have tiny populations – such as the famously svelte St Davids in Wales – and the fact that recent Green Belt guidance from the Government carves out loads of exceptions for planning.
With all of this in mind, we have to wonder if we should hear the uncertainty in Meopham Parish Council’s voice when it reports that the village is “said to be the longest in England.” Would the cottage-dwelling Hook Green-ites in the very north of Meopham really count themselves the same as the mid-century modernists way down in Culverstone Green? I’m not so sure.