In the Kent village of Chiddingstone there is a curious lump of sandstone, formed about 135 million years ago when this part of the world was a swampy mess, christened the Chiding Stone, because (so they say) nagging wives and other wrong-doers were brought here and rebuked – or chided – by the massed villagers. Thankfully Twitbook and Facegram were not invented so we have no photographic evidence. After a hard day’s chauvinistic peacocking the ‘men’ of the village would crawl back to the dark gloom of a local hostelry to whet their whistle and quench their thirst on butter beer and gin whilst congratulating each other on a job well done. Both locations were nick named ‘The Rock’.



The Rock, in both its forms, still stand proudly in the shadows of an otherwise out of date history. There are less requirements for a public chiding and the bar now are as popular with the women that run the country as much as the men. ‘The Rock Inn’ was named and noted as ‘permitting drunkenness’ in 1874 and almost lost its license. Today as the most recent in a long line of infamous landlords, I Laurence Bowes, currently support the business by only using the best of British Ingredients in a simple format with great local beer and an all-British line-up on the bar. I am a champion of all things local and understand that a community pub is just that, all about the community. As a seasoned pub operator, I am only too aware of the speed things happen in the current market and I only hope that for the short time in the pubs history that I am its custodian I can do it justice as one of Kent’s best maintained and treasured country pubs for locals and tourists alike.