North of Rochester, nestled in the marshy banks of the River Thames, sits the town of Cliffe, Kent. On the Hoo Peninsula, Cliffe’s edges are flanked by the marshlands of north Kent and the strip of the Medway Towns to the south. Cliffe is a largely rural locale; with large swathes of the area underdeveloped or allocated for industrial purposes. Post 1960s developments in the Cliffe Woods has provided much of the domestic fabric of the area, with many terraced, semi-detached, and bungalow-style properties in the region!

Although a small and rural locale sat atop the more metropolitan belt of Rochester and the Medway Towns - Cliffe’s history is long, storied, and vastly important to Kent itself. It’s argued that Cliffe was the first area to be inhabited across the whole of the Hoo Peninsula - with archaeological evidence dating back to the Mesolithic period! It’s also thought that Cliffe was an important location during the Anglo-Saxon period, especially throughout the Mercian region (a large Anglo-Saxon kingdom spread from Kent to the edge of Wales). Written records from the 8th century detail how King Offa of Mercia gifted lands and money for the creation of a church in Cliffe, St Helen’s Church, which still stands today as a Grade I listed property!

As well as the church site, there sits the Old Cliffe Rectory - an important site housing the political and wealthy elites of Kent and beyond. One such owner was Charles Burney, brother of Frances Burney - satirist and novelist who’s work foreshadow that of Jane Austen!

Cliffe is a rural locale rife with scheduled monuments, conservation areas, and listed buildings. Owing to this, development is intensely restricted and subject to specific terms and conditions, laid out in the Cliffe and Cliffe Woods neighbourhood plan. Tangential to this, is that Cliffe’s geography makes development hazardous - with the marshy banks liable to flooding and other natural forces. Development was particularly stagnant from 2003 onwards, but since 2016 has seen an influx of proposals. After the recent consultation period, the Medway Council has accepted the construction of 350 new homes across the Cliffe and Cliffe Woods locales!