WHY is the river called The Darent and the valley through which it runs The Darenth?

This is a mystery which has puzzled me for so many years. So I set out recently on a quest to find an answer.

I think I have. The use of the word Darenth is a simple mistake by a19th-century geographer.

Most valleys in England are named after their rivers but why should ours differ in its spelling?

Certainly Darenth is the name of a parish north of Horton Kirby and this is not disputed.

It has long been authenticated by records and tradition.

Apparently, Darent and all the other English rivers with a similar name such as Dart and Derwent originate from an ancient British word meaning oak river.

This would have been because of the proliferation of oak trees on the banks of the Darent all the way from its source near Westerham to its mouth at Dartford.

The Anglo-Saxons called our river Diorente or Derentan. Some five or six hundred years later it was described as Darentus in a Latin account.

The earliest reference I can find in an English text is from 1576, when it was known as Darent.

Until the 19th century and theintroduction of schools and bettereducation for all classes, people either used the mediaeval Latin or spelt their English words phonetically and it was quite common for the same word to be spelt in different ways in a single story.

This also applied to the early map makers and when C Smith’s map of Kent was published in 1804 the word Darent was used to describe the river and Darenth for the valley.

This is where the error firstoccurred, an error which has beenperpetuated down the years.

Today, Darenth is the accepted name for the valley. It should not be so.

I am expecting householders who call their homes Darenth and those who run Darenth Valley Golf Club or Darenth Rotary Club to change their names immediately!