The long and not so short of it

If you take a trip to Kent's Meopham, the longest village in the UK, be prepared for it to take a while to get to one end from the other, says MILO BOYD

- MILO BOYD

s it true what they say about Meopham?" I asked the friendly landlady of the Railway Tavern. "Of course it is," she winked, before warning me that I'd better get going if I was going to make it to the other end before the sun went down. Tucked away just over the Greater London boundary in Kent is a village of record-breaking proportions.

It's not the kind of record that can be found in the Guinness annuals, or one that is even known by some locals. "No mate," the man in the kebab shop said when I asked if he knew. "I've not heard that one," a dog walker told me.

Meopham is, according to some sources (including the publican), the longest village in the UK, maybe even in Europe, and possibly the world. From its northernmost tip over the railway tracks to the southernmost end by Wrotham, Meopham stretches seven miles. By way of comparison, Sunderland's longest side is just under five miles. If you were running the London Marathon, you'd have a Meopham's length between you and Buckingham Palace as you staggered through Canary Wharf.

On a cold Thursday in November, I set off south from the train station to see if I could take on this mammoth road trip from one end of Meopham to the other.