On the eastern side of the Chatham Road between Maidstone and Chatham, a series of large pits was excavated into the steep hillside to extract chalk. Several kilns operated in the pits and, by the 1930s, a group of four kilns was situated in the lower pit, a single one in the central pit and two in a pit close to the brow of the hill. The disused pits were filled in to make the route of the new Bluebell Hill Road, bypassing the Chatham Road in the 1970s. The remains of the kilns were probably buried too.