Ever taken a trip into Maidstone only to realise you’ve accidentally driven a further 76 miles and are heading into Maidenhead?

Probably not, so congratulations.

But for a worryingly large number of people, telling the difference between Maidstone, Kent, and Maidenhead, Berkshire, is a geographical and linguistic challenge too far; simply beyond their means.

The most disconcerting tale comes from Maidstone Tourist Information Centre, where information assistant Chris Charlesworth recalls helping out a baffled visitor earlier this summer.

“The worst one was when a lady came for a job interview” she recalls. “She was looking for an address on a street I hadn’t heard of.

“I told her it wasn’t in Maidstone and her face just dropped. She’d travelled from London.

She was supposed to be in Maidenhead.”

Whether or not the hapless job candidate was given a second interview remains unknown, but fortunately for her, she’s not alone.

Mrs Charlesworth and her colleagues are used to phone calls and inquiries from perplexed tourists looking for somewhere in Berkshire.

Over on the other side of London the similarity of names has thrown the vexed inhabitants of Maidenhead into something of an identity crisis; leading to a headline in the Maidenhead Advertiser - “Maidenhead versus Maidstone muddle” - and prompting some irritated residents to band together in a cyber group dubbed “Maidenhead is in Berkshire, not Kent” on the social networking site Facebook.

One irritated member said: “I spent the first half of my life in Maidenhead and I’ve spent the remaining time correcting people that Maidstone is not Maidenhead!”

Another wrote “It’s not as if they even remotely sound the same” while one simply laments: “When anyone asks ‘where you from?’ I just say ‘near Windsor’.”

Maidstone town centre manager Bill Moss suspected the confusion was more of a problem for Maidenhead, as the town suffered from being less well-known than Kent’s county town.

He said: “Quite clearly Maidenhead must be basking in the reflected glory of Maidstone; we’d welcome any visitors from Maidenhead to come and see what they’re missing out on.”

The Maidstone-Maidenhead example is not the only case of such toponymical confusion.

Leeds Castle, near Maidstone, regularly receives inquiries from day-trippers in Yorkshire hoping to pop by for the afternoon, while The Friars in Aylesford have even reported visitors turning up anticipating the sights of Aylesbury.

One staff member said: “We get them arriving from everywhere looking for Aylesbury.

“People should know better, but it seems reading a map is not our speciality nowadays.”

What do you think? Do you know of cases where Maidstone has been confused with Maidenhead or have you ever visited the wrong place by mistake? Write to messengernews@thekmgroup.co.uk or Kent Messenger, 6&7 Middle Row, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1TG