HUNTON, a parish in the hundred of TWYFORD, lathe of AYLESFORD, county of KENT, 6 miles (S. W. by S.) from Maidstone, containing 683 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, rated in the king's books at £ 16.13. 1., and in the peculiar jurisdiction and patronage of the Archbishop of Canterbury. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, is a neat edifice, containing some handsome monuments of the Fanes, whose old family seat at Burston is now used as a farm-house, and its chapel desecrated. The river Beult runs through the parish, and falls into the Medway at Yalding. Here are extensive plantations of hops. In the 41st of Henry III., Nicholas de Lenham, then proprietor of Hunton, obtained grants of free warren, a weekly market, and a fair for five days annually, which have long since fallen into disuse. The manor afterwards passed to the Gyffords, and, in the reign of Edward III., to the noble family of Clinton, the site of whose ancient mansion, encompassed by a moat, is visible near the church. Beilby Porteus, twentytwo years rector of this parish, successively Bishop of Chester and London, and celebrated for his universal benevolence, bequeathed £1000 three per cent, consols, for teaching children. A stratum of petrified shells in marl, of the sort called conchites, was discovered in 1683. On Midsummer-day, 1746, and on August 19th, 1763,two of the most awful and destructive storms ever recorded in this country occurred in this and the neighbouring parishes.