Ash is a village and civil parish in the Dover district of east Kent about three miles west of Sandwich.

The civil parish has a population of 2,767, increasing to 3,365[1] at the 2011 Census, and includes the villages of Ash, Westmarsh, Ware, Hoaden and Richborough.

[3] Ash was once part of the Royal manor of Wingham and having been given to the See of Canterbury in 850 AD by King Athelstan, it became a separate parish in 1282, one of the largest in Kent at that time.

It also has the best collection of medieval monumental effigies in Kent, including one to Jane Kerriel (c. 1455) which reveals a unique horseshoe head-dress.

[6] From 1916 to 1948 it had a station ("Ash Town") on the East Kent Light Railway, one of Colonel Stephens' lines, which ran between Shepherdswell and Wingham.