Aylesford

Location:

Clinker manufacture operational: 1877?-1905?

Approximate total clinker production: 250,000 tonnes

Raw materials: ?Chalk: Gault clay (Gault Formation: 100-112 Ma) was available from the adjoining brickfield.

Ownership:

The raison d’etre of this plant is a mystery, since it had no chalk quarry and can only have been supplied with raw material by river from the more northerly West Kent quarry, or somewhere else even further north (although it is just possible that it may have used paper works waste, in which case its location is quite logical). Its history, conflated with those of the other West Kent plant and the brick works, is obscure. The site was originally part of the West Kent Gault Brick Works, and a cement plant was built in 1877, originally with wet process bottle kilns, of which there were eventually 13. Seven chamber kilns were built in 1884, and a further three in 1889. All the kilns were small. The plant appears in Kelly’s Directory 1903, but not in Davis’ 1907 list, and presumably it closed around 1905 when the West Kent rotary kilns were installed. If the paper works waste theory is correct, then like South Hylton, it might have closed on conversion of the paper works to the sulfite process. Total capacity 420 t/week. The plant used only water transport. The site was cleared, and is now waste land with a few insignificant foundations still visible. The clay pits are waste and partially flooded.

Power supply

No information

Rawmills

No information

No rotary kilns were installed.


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