HAWKHURST  , a

town in the southern parliamentary division of Kent, England, 47 M . S.E. of London, on a branch of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway . Pop . (19o1), 3136 . It lies mainly on a ridge above the valley of the Kent Ditch, a tributary of the Rother . The neighbouring country is hilly, rich and well wooded, and the pleasant and healthy situation has led to the considerable extension of the old village as a residential locality . The Kent Sanatorium and one of the Barnardo homes are established here . The church of St Lawrence, founded from Battle Abbey in Sussex, is Decorated and Perpendicular and its east window, of the earlier period, is specially beautiful .