Medway, River, is a river in southern England. It rises in three headstreams in Surrey and East Sussex and flows through Kent. The river is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) long. It flows through or past what are called Medway Towns—Tonbridge, Maidstone, Rochester, and Chatham, all in Kent—and into the Thames estuary. The river is tidal, and it is navigable as far as Maidstone. In 1667, the Dutch sailed up the estuary as far as the naval dockyard at Chatham and burned some of the warships there. See also Kent .
