Wormshill (/wɜːrmzˈhɪl/ wurmz-HIL), historically Wormsell, is a small village and civil parish within the Borough of Maidstone, Kent, England.

The fields and woodland surrounding Wormshill have changed little in the past 500 years, and the village itself remains rural with a low population density compared to the national average.

The population of 200 is a mixture of agricultural workers employed by local farms, and professional residents who commute to nearby towns.

[3][4][5] The area was also described in a paper in Archaeologia Cantiana, 1961, as "Wormshill, an ancient possession of the Kings of Kent, the hill where they worshipped the heathen Woden".

[15] In 1966, the remains of a U-shaped mediaeval pastoral enclosure for controlling the movement of stock were recorded in woodland to the north of the village.

The first recorded patron of Wormshill was Robert de Gatton, who owned the Manor of Wormsell during the reign of Henry III (1207–72).

[22] Patronage is believed to have lapsed from the Sedley family to the Archbishop of Canterbury and then to Sir Joseph Aylosse before being conveyed by gift from a Mr. Serjeant Moses to the charity of the president and governors of Christ's Hospital in London in gratitude for a University of Cambridge scholarship he had received.

[29] Records indicate that at least one former resident of the village fought as part of the Australian contingent in the Gallipoli Campaign of the First World War.

Originally employed as a fireman, after training at Blackboy and Broadmeadows camps in Victoria, he sailed from Melbourne as part of the Australian Imperial Force, 16th Infantry Battalion aboard HMAT Ceramic A40 on 23 December 1914.

[30][31] During the Second World War, Wormshill joined a number of similar settlements in the region to form part of the anti-invasion network.

Although its primary purpose was a communications post, the zero station was also designed to hold ammunition and explosives and provide living quarters for the radio equipment operators.

Flt Lt A. R. Cruikshank is reported as having "Sited a Diver north of Ashford and attacked from astern at 100 yards range.

Roadside checkpoints were set up on the main routes into the village to the north and south and Allied forces moving through the region camped overnight in the area, including a detachment of New Zealand troops in fields near Home Farm.

Wormshill is part of the parliamentary constituency of Faversham and Mid Kent, whose Member of Parliament is Helen Whately of the Conservative Party.

The nearby road intersection of Black Post is recorded on the Ordnance Survey maps at 191 m (627 ft) above sea level.

[4] The settlement itself (as opposed to the wider parish) is on a downland ridge between two shallow dip slope valleys that separate it from Bicknor to the north-west and Frinsted to the east.

The countryside around the village has been described as "an area where the whole landscape is a piece of history—a valley where time has stood still and the pattern of woods and fields is much as it was 500 years ago".

[27][39][54] Data for the ethnicity of the wider Maidstone area show that the population is around 97 per cent white and that the remainder is of mixed, black, and Asian descent.

[67][68][69] The post office briefly moved to another location in The Street under the stewardship of local schoolmistress Fanny Harris (who operated the service from 1926); however, it returned to the original site in 1946 under the new sub-postmistress Irene Bugden and was run as a small general stores until it closed in 1976.

[67] Fanny Harris (then 92 years old and the village's oldest inhabitant) and Robin Leigh-Pemberton were passengers on the first postbus service on 4 March 1974.

A large country house now known as Wormshill Court and bordered to the north and east by a brick wall includes the outbuildings of Manor Farm.

[74] In 1858 a further map of the manor named the property Court Lodge Farm and included an inset plan showing the exchange of land between the governors of Christ's Hospital and a Mr. Henry Hudson.

[78] A number of ancient trackways including the Pilgrims' Way and the North Downs Way (now designated as footpaths or byways) pass within a few miles of the village.

A daily Postbus service, incorporated into the village postal delivery and collection timetable and which ran for 35 years, stopped on 14 November 2009.

The service, run by the Royal Mail and subsidised by the county council, began in March 1974 and collected residents from Wormshill and other villages en route to Sittingbourne.

[68] The closure of the only means of public transport to and from the village was controversial and, following a campaign by local councillors and journalists, the postbus was replaced by a temporary minibus service, funded by the county council.

The village lies between the M2 and M20 motorways, and the nearest railway station is at Harrietsham on the Maidstone Line, 3.8 mi (6 km) to the south by road.

A vicar at the Rectory of Wormshill in the 19th century, Reverend Josiah Disturnell,[23] was the subject of a debate about exceptional human longevity; it was claimed that he lived to age 107.

[93] In January 2007, the church and its surroundings were used as locations in the filming of an episode of EastEnders, broadcast in the United Kingdom over the Easter 2007 holiday season.

Also featured were other locations in and near the village, including exterior shots of the Blacksmiths Arms combined with interior views of the nearby Ringlestone Inn.