Construction of the suburb started in the 1930s with the building of South Park Road, the western ends of Plains Avenue and Marion Crescent and Cranborne Avenue (originally named Shepway Avenue) and parts of Brockenhurst, Ringwood and Lyndhurst Roads. The majority of the suburb was constructed as a council estate by Maidstone Borough Council in stages after World War II. Phases of infill construction continued up to the present. The original grid of roads laid out for the council estate after World War II bear names of traditional English counties (for example Northumberland Road, Cambridge Crescent, Hampshire Drive, Rutland Way and Nottingham Avenue). The estate was originally planned with large areas of open land for recreation, although later building has encroached on some of this spac