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Aylesford is a large village on the River Medway in Kent, 4 miles NW of Maidstone in England. Originally a small riverside settlement, Aylesford has expanded rapidly over the past thirty years to gain a population of around 11,000. It has a long history.

Contents 1 History 1.1 Aylesford Priory (Also known as 'The Friars') 2 River Medway 3 The village 3.1 Railway 3.2 British Legion village 4 External links 5 References

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.

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 on the continent for centuries before being returned to Aylesford. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII in 1536, the Friary was rebuilt in 1675, but the main part of the house was destroyed 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 possesses some notable artwork such as the ceramics created by Adam Kossowski.

The village has long had river connections. 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 was built, believed to be in the 14th century (although the wide central span 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.

The old bridge has now been superseded by a modern structure, although the old one remains for pedestrians.

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.

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 is now shared between television studios and a leading newsprint recycling plant.

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.

Aylesford railway station, opened on 18 June 1856, is on the line connecting Strood with Maidstone (West). The station buildings are gabled and highly decorated, built in Kentish ragstone with Caen stone dressings. Windows replicate those at Aylesford Priory.

The British Legion village is located here.

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Aylesford is also an incorporated village of Nova Scotia

• Photographs of Aylesford

• The Friars website

view • talk • edit  The local government district of Tonbridge and Malling in Kent, South East England with its suburbs, villages, towns and parishes:
Addington • Aylesford • Beltring • Birling • Blue Bell Hill • Borough Green • Burham • Ditton • East Malling • East Malling and Larkfield • East Peckham • Eccles • Golden Green • Hadlow • Hildenborough • Ightham • Kings Hill • Larkfield • Leybourne • Mereworth • Offham • Platt • Plaxtol • Ryarsh • Shipbourne • Snodland • Stansted • Tonbridge • Trottiscliffe • Walderslade • Wateringbury • West Malling • West Peckham • Wrotham • Wrotham Heath
The borough of Tonbridge and Malling List of places in Kent

Coordinates: 51°17′N, 0°29′E