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The History of Addington

The Village lies in an area which has had a continuous history for over 5,000 years, and where direct links with our prehistoric forbears can still be seen. Addington shares with Trottiscliffe and Aylesford the distinction of preserving some of the most ancient monuments of the first settled population of Kent. There are the Neolithic monuments lying in Park Road between the Village Green and the Village Hall/Recreation Ground: one is a Burial Chamber and the other a Long Barrow. It is generally agreed that they were erected around 2,500 BC and being similar to monuments found all the way from India to Europe and demonstrate that the earliest inhabitants of the Parish also belonged to a culture that started to fashion the world of today.

Neolithic long barrow at Addington, Kent

Even before the Neolithic culture arrived locally Addington had been a place to which earlier Stone Age man came. Flints and tools of the earlier Stone age men can still be found, and were formerly abundant in an area of the quarry close to the site of the Village Hall. Early man had a seasonal hunting camp there, which was visited periodically over thousands of years.

There were significant factors which made Addington a suitable area in which to live, plenty of surface water, the adjacent trade-route of the river Medway, an open aspect, the hills for defence in time of attack, and the earliest of trackways, now better known by the later name of the Pilgrim’s Way.

Addington gets its name from Eddingtune—the land of Eda the Saxon.