West Kingsdown is a village and civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England, on the A20 5 miles (8 km) southeast of Swanley, 5.5 miles (9 km) northeast of Sevenoaks and from London. The Area The parish was part of Axstane Hundred and later Dartford Rural District. The village, because of its situation near London, grew considerably after the First World War from a relatively small farming community to a commuter village of around 5000 residents, expanding mainly on the northeast side of the A20. To the southwest of the main village are the rural housing developments of Knatts Valley and East Hill. To the north of the village lies the Brands Hatch motor racing circuit. There are four churches in the village: the parish church of St Edmund King and Martyr; West Kingsdown Baptist Church; the Roman Catholic church of St Bernadette; and Kings Church, an Evangelical church established in 1996. History Village Kingsdown, the former name of West Kingsdown village, traces its origins back to Anglo-Saxon settlements in the woods above the Darenth Valley. Farmers carved out pockets of land for arable farming. The Saxons also provided the name – 'the King's own hill pasture'. There is evidence that the parish church, St Edmund King and Martyr, was originally of Saxon construction. It appears that Edward the Confessor owned Kingsdown and the property passed into the ownership of William I following the Norman Conquest in 1066. From 1066 to 1630 the ownership of the land in and around Kingsdown passed into the possession of a series of landlords, including Edward IV. From 1630 until 1784 there were absentee landlords. Records from 1664 show there were around 30 houses in the parish, so the population may have been around 150 people, a third of whom were too poor to pay tax. A census in 1676 recorded 90 people aged over 16. No-one was, or admitted to being – a Roman Catholic or a nonconformist. In this period roads through the village grew in importance and a turnpike was set up on what is now the A20 to provide income. Around 1780 the route was realigned, making it easier to travel through the village. At the first national census in 1801 the population was recorded as 337. By 1901 the population had only risen to 506, falling to 407 in 1911 and 427 in 1927. In 1894 a