Earl Street

Earl Street forms part of the apparently planned layout of the 12th Century town and took its name from Earl Place, which was a massive town house. The main hall range has gone, but the street containing a fine 15th Century crown-post roof survives at 46-50 Earl Street, albeit heavily altered in the 1870s and the 20th Century., Building History , Other interesting buildings include numbers 31/33, a major early 17th Century town house once owned by Andrew Broughton, who, as a clerk to the court, witnessed the signing of Charles I death warrant. It was divided into two houses in the 18th Century and given a Georgian-style door and windows., The east wing became the Maidstone Club - an upper class social club, this time purpose built, can be seen at No.32. This was erected in 1882 as the Conservative club and features above its entrance a carved head of Benjamin Disraeli once MP for Maidstone., Market Buildings , A market has been held in the centre of town since 1771 with the stock market in a slightly different location to the vegetable and fish markets. In 1823 a review was undertaken of the traffic management and, in 1826, a new market building was completed at a cost of £13,000 with stalls laid out within the yard of the Mitre public house on the High Street and Earl Street., In 1835 a new corn exchange designed by local architect John Whichcord was added. The stalls were never all occupied, so the market contracted away from Earl Street and a concert hall (now the Hazlitt Theatre) was erected in 1869 utilising the old stone columns in new arcading. In 1900 some of the stalls at the High Street end were converted in to a fire station which lasted until 1967.