Aylesford

Aylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, 4 miles NW of Maidstone in England.

Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. One pub, a Post Office and four small independent shops remain. Aylesford has expanded rapidly over the past thirty years to gain a population of around 5,000.

The Parish of Aylesford covers more than seven square miles, stretching north to Rochester Airport estate and south to Barming, and has a total population of over 10,000, with the main settlements at Aylesford, Eccles, Blue Bell Hill Village and (part of) Walderslade.

Aylesford Newsprint, a long-established major employer in the area, is the largest paper recycling factory in Europe, manufacturing newsprint for the newspaper industry.

History
There has been activity in the area since Neolithic times. There are a series of chamber tombs north of the village, of which Kit's Coty House, 1.5 miles to the north is the most famous; all have been damaged by farming. Kit's Coty is the remains of the burial chamber at one end of a long barrow. A similar structure, just south of this, Little Kits Coty House - also known as the Countless Stones is lower down the same hillside.

Bronze Age swords have been discovered near here and an Iron Age settlement and Roman villa stood at Eccles. The village has been suggested as the site of the Battle of the Medway during the Roman invasion of Britain although there is no direct evidence of this.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle records the Battle of Aylesford taking place nearby 455, where Hengest fought Vortigern, although his brother Horsa is said to have fallen in this battle; Alfred the Great defeated the Danes in 893; as did Edmund II Ironside in 1016.

The manor of Aylesford was first owned by William the Conqueror: the church of St Peter and St Paul is of Norman origin. Here there is a memorial to the Culpeper family, who owned the nearby Preston Hall Estate.

The Friars
In 1240, Ralph Frisburn, on his return from the Holy Land, founded a Carmelite monastery under the patronage of Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor: the first of the order to be founded in Europe. He was followed later by Simon Stock; who, in 1254,  was elected Superior-general of the now mendicant Carmelites. The relics (remains of his head) of St Simon Stock are retained at the friary, having been preserved in Bordeaux for centuries before being returned to Aylesford in July 1951.

Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536, ownership of the site was transferred to Sir Thomas Wyatt of nearby Allington Castle. Following the rebellion against Queen Mary by Sir Thomas's son, Thomas Wyatt the younger, the porperty was forfeited back to the crown. It was later granted into the possession of Sir John Sedley by Mary's half-sister Queen Elizabeth. Although the Sedley family made some changes to the priory, it was the next owner Sir John Banks that was responsible for the rebuilding of the Friary during the 1670s.

The main part of the house was destroyed by fire in the 1930s. The Carmelites took it over in 1949 and have successfully restored it to its former glory: it is now a place of retreat and a conference centre. The friary has some notable artwork such as the ceramics created by Adam Kossowski. The remains of the manor house present at the foundation of the Priory are believed to lie under the Great Courtyard. This could date from as early as 1085.

River Medway
Due to the village's location on its banks, the River Medway has been a key influence on its development. Aylesford takes its name from an Old English personal name, and literally denotes ‘Ægel’s ford’. Its first recorded use is from the tenth century, as Æglesforda.

It was also the place where one of the earliest bridges across the Medway was built, believed to be in the 14th century (although the wide central span seen today is later). Upstream from Rochester Bridge it became the next bridging point. The river was navigable as far as Maidstone until 1740, when barges of forty tons could reach as far as Tonbridge. As a result wharfs were built, one being at Aylesford: corn, fodder and fruit; and stone and timber were the principal cargoes.

Due to increased traffic in recent years, the ancient bridge has now been superseded by a modern structure nearby, but remains in use for pedestrians.

The village
The oldest parts of the village lie north and immediately south of the river. Many of the buildings are of great antiquity: the Chequers Inn and the George House (formerly a coaching inn) and the almshouses among them. St Peter and St Paul's church, parts of which date back to the Norman invasion, sits on a hill in the southern part of the village. Major construction took place during the Victorian era, when houses were constructed to serve the nearby quarry. The brick and tile industries have been replaced by a large area of commercial buildings; and what was once the huge Aylesford paper mills site has now been regenerated by a leading newsprint plant surrounded by newly developed private estates featuring high value accommodation.

Recent expansion has been to the southern side of the river, where a substantial suburban housing estate has grown up, partly because the village is served by the railway, with connections for Maidstone and London. Many of these homes were originally owned by employees of the paper mills, which are now closed and which have been replaced by a number of smaller industrial estates with a variety of specialist businesses that include engineering, manufacturers wholesale and others.

In spite of the above the village has not lost its original integrity and it is a popular place for visitors.

Schools
Henry Arthur Brassey (1840–1891) was a great benefactor of Aylesford, and as well as financing major repairs to the church, also provided the village with a school. This was replaced in the 1960s with a new building to the south east of the village, next to the site of the local secondary school (now Aylesford School - Sports College) which was housed in buildings largely built in the 1940s by Italian prisoners of War. The old school buildings were totally rebuilt on the same site, in 2008. The original village school - now known as the Brassey Centre - is used as a church office and community hall.

Railway
Aylesford railway station, opened on 18 June 1856, is on the Medway Valley Line connecting Strood with Maidstone (West) and Paddock Wood.

The original station buildings - gabled and highly decorated, built in Kentish ragstone with Caen stone dressings, with windows which replicate those at Aylesford Priory - have been used as a fast food restaurant in recent years following restoration to an award-winning standard in the 1980s.

Royal British Legion Village
Located to the South of Aylesford, on the A20 London Road, The Royal British Legion Village was founded after the First World War to help injured soldiers on discharge from the nearby Preston Hall hospital. It was first the centre of a small farming community known as The Preston Hall Colony.

When The British Legion was founded in 1921, it became one of the first branches and, by 1925, was known as Royal British Legion Village.

A thriving community has since developed, providing nursing homes, sheltered housing and independent living units, as well as employment and social activities, helping all disabled veterans living in, or moving to, the area.

In 1972 the Poppy Appeal headquarters moved to the village, which now forms one of the main centres of Legion life and activities. An industrial complex in the village houses Royal British Legion industries, including the manufacture of road and public signs used throughout the UK.

Demography
As of the 2001 UK census, the Aylesford electoral ward had a population of 4,548. The ethnicity was 98.2% white, 0.8% mixed race, 0.9% Asian, 0.1% black and 0% other. The place of birth of residents was 96.2% United Kingdom, 0.5% Republic of Ireland, 1% other Western European countries, and 2.3% elsewhere. Religion was recorded as 77.4% Christian, 0.2% Buddhist, 0.5% Hindu, 0.1% Sikh, 0% Jewish, and 0.2% Muslim. 12.8% were recorded as having no religion, 0.1% had an alternative religion and 8.8% did not state their religion.

The economic activity of residents aged 16–74 was 41.1% in full-time employment, 14.5% in part-time employment, 9.3% self-employed, 1.9% unemployed, 2.2% students with jobs, 2.5% students without jobs, 15.3% retired, 6.7% looking after home or family, 4.4% permanently sick or disabled and 2.2% economically inactive for other reasons. The industry of employment of residents was 19.6% retail, 13.6% manufacturing, 9.2% construction, 13.2% real estate, 9.7% health and social work, 6.1% education, 8% transport and communications, 4.8% public administration, 3.6% hotels and restaurants, 4.7% finance, 1.1% agriculture and 6.4% other. Compared with national figures, the ward had a relatively high proportion of workers in construction, and a relatively low proportion in agriculture, education, hotels and restaurants. Of the ward's residents aged 16–74, 14.3% had a higher education qualification or the equivalent, compared with 19.9% nationwide.