326/327 Chatham – Gillingham – Rainham – Newington – Sittingbourne

The 326 is one of Medway's classic cross-town workhorses, threading the urban ribbon between Chatham Waterfront and Sittingbourne Bus Hub. Run by Chalkwell, it covers a stretch of the old A2 Watling Street corridor that has been carrying travellers between London and Canterbury for the best part of two thousand years, and the view from the window still flips between busy high streets, hospital approaches, orchard country and quiet brick villages.

Setting off from Sittingbourne Bus Hub, the bus eases past Ufton Lane and through Chalkwell, with the residential streets of Kenilworth Court and Wentworth Drive giving way to the edge-of-town junctions at Keyways and The Billet. At Key Street the route crosses onto the old Roman alignment, slipping past The Long Hop and out through Bobbing, where the church tower sits low against open fields. Keycol and Newington follow in quick succession, the road squeezing between flint cottages, the Playstool Road turn and the long brick wall of Newington Court.

Hartlip Hill is one of the prettier surprises on the route. The bus climbs gently past the Tuck Inn and Breach Lane, with fruit orchards and hop gardens still visible on either side, before dropping down through Moor Street into Rainham. The high street here is properly Kentish: the war memorial, the Cricketers, the Post Office, and a steady rhythm of small shops as the bus calls at stop after stop along the A2.

Past Tesco at Rainham, the journey becomes more urban. Eastcourt Lane marks the boundary with Gillingham, and the bus heads up through Featherby Road and into Darland, with Barnsole Road peeling off towards the recreation ground. The landmark Jezreels site on Canterbury Street, once home to the famously unfinished Jezreel's Tower, comes next, followed by Gillingham Park and the long approach to Medway Maritime Hospital, one of the busiest stops on the timetable.

From the hospital, the route drops down through Copenhagen Road to Britton Farm Mall and the Medway Park war memorial, then runs along the edge of Brompton with views across to the historic garrison terraces. The King Charles Hotel marks the turn down to the Chatham Dockyard Main Gate, and the bus finishes its outbound run at Chatham Waterfront Bus Station beside the River Medway, before reversing the whole sequence back to Sittingbourne.

It is not a tourist route in the open-top sense, but for anyone wanting to stitch together the Historic Dockyard, Fort Amherst, the Strand at Gillingham and the older villages strung along Watling Street, the 326 is the simplest single thread through Medway.