page_title: Aylesford
section_title: The village
hierarchical_section_title: Aylesford / The village
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Aylesford village with the church of St Peter and St Paul in the background
context_page_description: Aylesford is a village and civil parish on the River Medway in Kent, 4 miles northwest of Maidstone in England.
  Originally a small riverside settlement, the old village comprises around 60 houses, many of which were formerly shops. Two pubs, a village shop and other amenities including a hairdresser, estate agent, two restaurants, a chiropodist and a coffee shop are located on the high street. Aylesford's current population is 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 Walderslade.
  Aylesford Newsprint was a long-established major employer in the area and was the largest paper recycling factory in Europe, manufacturing newsprint for the newspaper industry. In 2015, Aylesford Paper Mill, as it was known by local residents, was closed down and stripped of all its assets. Many local families who had been employed there, sometimes for several generations, were affected.
context_section_description: 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 built 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 The brick and tile industries have been replaced by a large area of commercial buildings, and what was once the huge Aylesford paper mills site was later regenerated by a leading newsprint plant surrounded by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 Many of these homes were originally owned by employees of the paper mills, which are now closed and which have been replaced by a number of smaller industrial estates with a variety of specialist businesses that include engineering, manufacturing, wholesale and others.
  In spite of the above the village has not lost its original integrity and it is a popular place for visitors.
caption: St Peter and St Paul's church sitting above the village
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