At the 2001 census, the parish, which includes the villages of Benover, Laddingford and Queen Street, had a population of 2,236.

[4] Yalding was one of the principal shipment points on the River Medway for cannon, from villages of the Wealden iron industry.

But the name was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086 as the “Saxon manor of Hallinges seized by William the Conqueror and given to his half brother Odo of Bayeux”.

The Cavaliers had advanced from Aylesford towards Tonbridge, but the Parliamentarian soldiers had marched to block their movements, bombarded them and forced their surrender, with the result that 300 were captured and 300 escaped.

In the early years it manufactured soap, then progressed to crop protection products under Imperial Chemical Industries' Agrochemicals Division.

It is just downstream of the automatic sluice where the river drops from +11.2m to +7.41m above mean sea level, the navigation bears left through the Hampstead Rd Canal, and the Hampstead Lock, the main stream drops over the weir and sluice and is joined here by the River Teise (Lesser Teise) and both pass under Twyford Bridge.

However the main stream of the River Teise flowed into the Beult near Benover, 3 km upstream of Town Bridge.

[9] The medieval Town Bridge is built of ragstone in the 15th century, it has seven arches and spans the Beult and the marshy ground each side.

However, the village is home to many children who attend grammar schools in the neighbouring town of Maidstone.

The Greensand Way long-distance footpath crosses the Medway at Twyford Bridge, and follows up the High Street, passes through Blunden Lane, and leaves the village by an ancient byway by Bustom Farm Cottages.

Yalding had an annual contemporary music festival called 'The Vicar's Picnic', set on the edge of the village.

Notable acts included The Fun Lovin' Criminals, Starsailor, Reef, Norman Jay MBE, Seb Fontaine, Bruce Foxton, Nightmares on Wax, 90's Indie Britpop band Cast, Canterbury folk-hiphop act, 'Coco & the Butterfields' and The Bluetones lead vocalist Mark Morriss.