Eccles is a village in the English county of Kent, part of the parish of Aylesford, and in the valley of the River Medway.

[7] Eccles was mostly farmland[8] until Thomas Cubitt bought two farms near the river and built a steam powered brickyard and cement works.

Buildings were positioned along tramway track on the gently sloping site so that material moved by gravity, with each stage of manufacture, closer to the quayside.

At its peak, almost a thousand men and boys were employed making portland cement and Burham bricks from the Gault clay, but the site closed in 1941.

[11][12][13] Local farmer Thomas Abbot built a terrace of 22 cottages on Bull Lane to house some of these workers, and the population soon increased to 300.

[17] It has also been suggested that the name 'Eccles' comes from the Latin word 'ecclesia' meaning 'church', implying that a post-Roman Christian community existed in the area, although there is no evidence for this.

[18] In 1798, Eccles was a manor of the parish of Aylesford, "which was of some note in the time of the Conqueror, being then part of the possessions of Odo, bishop of Baieux, the king's half brother, under the general title of whose lands it is thus entered in the book of Domesday".

[19] The site of the original manor of Eccles was lost to public knowledge by the 18th Century, but it was surmised to be somewhere at the eastern extremity of the parish, near Boxley Hill.

The village also has road access to communities on the west bank of the River Medway by way of Peter's Bridge which was opened in September 2016.

[40] Among those claiming credit for the change were a coven of white witches from Hastings who performed a ritual at Little Kit's Coty House on the stones to protect them from any disturbance by the railway.