a place where three roads meet, known to this day as Baker's Cross". Popular legend also has it that Baker was killed at Baker's Cross; although in fact he died in his house in London. The town developed around the "King's High Road" (now named as High Street, Stone Street and Waterloo Road) until the Second World War. Following the war, additional housing was built adjacent to the historic centre - the Wheatfield Estate to the north and the Frythe Estate to the south. In the 1970s, a Conservation Area was designated in the town centre. Most of the buildings on High Street, Stone Street and The Hill are listed. Governance In 1974 Cranbrook Rural District was merged into the Borough of Tunbridge Wells. In 2010 Francis Rook of the Liberal Democrats won one of the three council seats in the Benenden and Cranbrook ward from the Conservatives to become one of only 6 non-Conservative councillors out of 48 in the borough. The name of the parish council was changed from Cranbrook Parish Council to Cranbrook and Sissinghurst Parish Council in 2009. The parish council is based in the Old Fire Station on Stone Street. Geography Located on the Maidstone to Hastings road, it is five miles north of Hawkhurst. Baker's Cross is on the eastern outskirts of the town. Cranbrook is on the Hastings Beds, alternating sands and clays which are more resistant to erosion than the surrounding clays and so form the hills of the High Weald. The geology of the area has played a major role in the town's development, deposits of iron ore and fuller's earth were important in the iron industry and cloth industry respectively. Demography At the 2011 census, Cranbrook had 6,717 residents. The Kent Structure Plan calls it the smallest town in Kent, although Fordwich has a town council and just 381 residents. Economy Since the decline of the cloth trade, agriculture became the mainstay of the economy. The first bank was opened in Cranbrook in 1803 by Samuel Waddington. It closed in 1805. In 1804, the Cranbrook Bank was opened. It changed its name to the Weald of Kent Bank in 1812 and then to Bishop & Co's Bank in 1813 before being declared bankrupt in October 1814. The Tooth family of Great Swifts, near Cranbrook, established a brewery at Baker's Cross. A large part of their trade was the export of