Riverhead, Kent
Riverhead, a one-time small village and now a village part of the built-up area to the north of the town Sevenoaks, is also a civil parish in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. The parish has a population of around 2500. The parish stretches from Chipstead Lake and the River Darent in the north to Mill Bank Wood in the south.
There is a cricket ground in Riverhead at the top of Worship's hill, in which a daily pre-school operates. Riverhead contains two schools, Amherst Primary School (headmaster the Mr. Wiltshire), and Riverhead Infants' School. On Saturdays, there is Saturday morning football club at Amherst school, open to the students there. There is a nursery, part of Bright Horizons' Teddies Nursery group, where Riveread Infants school was until 2002, the rest of the site is a new housing estate.
The parish church is dedicated to St Mary the Virgin; its architect was Decimus Burton.
Behind the church is an area known as the sand pits, it is popular amongst the young people in Riverhead. The area features a steep sandstone cliff, an open field, woodland, and a park.
The village is an exuberant and flourishing place. Every year there is the Village Fete and Carnival on the local common, held by the 3rd sevenoaks scout group. The Riverhead Parkland offers a great open space to walk and play, set in a wealden greensand vale, between the new Riverhead Infants School and Brittains Lane.
There are two pubs in Riverhead, The Bullfinch (McMullen & Sons[1]) and The Riverhead (Harvester). The village also boasts an old fashioned sweet shop and milkshake bar located on London Road. The village has a great butchers on The Square, Batchelors, a small family run business. The speciality of the shop is a spicy sausage from a South African recipe called 'Boerewors'.
There are also range of shops on the White Hart Parade and London Road, including a couple of boutiques, a small art gallery, restaraunte (Malaysian cuisine, called Longhouse), an empty double shop whereOddbins once was, a dry cleaners and educational suppliers. The parade gets its name from a pub that was once there. On London Road, there is also a power-tools, car and machinery hiring shop, Rawstone hire; in addition there is a funeral directors, which is still temperarily closed from a fire about mid 2011.
At the north end of the village is Tesco Extra and a range of other shops such as Bathstore, a tile store (on the site where an aquamarine retailer was until early 2011) and Majestic Wine. There is also an Aston Martin and Jaguar dealership. The Barratt built Lakeside Place estate, built on the former Marley Tiles site in the mid 1990s, sits rather pleasantly on the banks of Chipstead Lake.
Digital television has been available in all parts of Riverhead since 2006 from Blue Bell Hill for Kent & Sussex tv tranmissions, which is also now broadcasting in HD. Viewers for this free service need to ensure their aerial is pointing eastwards.
Riverhead is served by four main bus routes during weekdays, all linking the village with Sevenoaks town and station, with about four buses an hour during the day. Buses also connect the village to Tunbridge Wells (402), Otford (432), Farnborough (402), Bromley (402), Bluewater (306), Borough Green (306) and Westerham (401). These bus services are provided by Arriva Kent & Sussex and Go Coach.
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