Bearsted or Bersted, a parish in Kent, on a tributary of the Medway river, and on the L.C. & D.R., 45 miles from London. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office. Acreage, 573; population of the civil parish, 645 ; of the ecclesiastical, 665. Some lands here were held by the Bertie family before the reign of Henry II. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Canterbury; net value, £162 with residence. Patrons, the Dean and Chapter of Rochester. The church is Perpendicular English, and has a tower with three stone figures‹a lion, an ox, and an eagle‹on the battlements. A Witenagemote was held here in 696 under Bertwald, " high bishop of Britain," with Gebmund of Rochester. Among the "Dooms" then enacted were several affecting the church.
