Sean Dickson hit Kent’s highest individual score since the Second World War as he and Joe Denly extended their mammoth second wicket partnership at Beckenham to county record proportions.

Dickson was on 294 not out at lunch after adding 382 with Denly as Kent continued to pile on the runs against Northants, reaching 603 for 3 by lunch in their Specsavers County Championship Division Two game.

Denly eventually holed out in the deep for 182 off Rob Keogh’s off spin, after adding 39 in 55 minutes to his overnight 143, but Dickson kept going as the Northants bowlers struggled to hold back the tide of runs on a featherbed pitch.

A cracking hook for four by Denly, off Nathan Buck, took the partnership with Dickson to 369 and – in one stroke – past both the 366 that Simon Hinks and Neil Taylor added for the second wicket against Middlesex at Canterbury in 1990 and also the 368 that was the previous highest partnership for any Kent wicket, put together by Aravinda de Silva and Graham Cowdrey for the fourth wicket against Derbyshire at Maidstone in 1995.

Dickson, who resumed on 210 in Kent’s overnight 434 for 1, accumulated remorselessely as he went to his 250 from 334 balls, including three sixes and 23 fours, while Denly pulled Ben Sanderson for four in the day’s first over and then drove Graeme White’s left-arm spin for six.

Sam Northeast contributed 38 to a third wicket stand of 68 in 15 overs with Dickson who, at the interval, was within sight of two more Kentish records: Bill Ashdown’s highest individual score of 332, against Essex at Brentwood in 1934, and the same batsman’s 305 not out against Derbyshire at Dover in 1935 – the highest by a Kent cricketer on home soil.

Dickson’s score, at lunch, was the fourth highest individual innings by a Kent player and, in all, 169 runs had come in 33 overs during the morning session.