Borough of Ashford

The Borough of Ashford is a local government district with borough status in Kent, England. It borders five other Kent districts as well as East Sussex to the South West. Ashford Borough council's main offices are in the town of Ashford. The borough was formed on 1 April 1974 by the merger of the then Borough of Tenterden with Ashford urban district, as well as the Rural Districts of East Ashford, West Ashford and Tenterden. Covering 58,000 Hectares, it is the largest district by area in Kent.

The Borough is divided into 39 civil parishes centred on the villages as well as the historic Town of Tenterden.

From the 1960s onwards, Ashford has experienced phases of rapid urban growth creating new suburbs such as Stanhope and, more recently, Singleton. Today's urban growth is partially shaped by the de facto corridors created by the M20 motorway, the High Speed 1 line and several other rail lines which converge on the town's railway station and this has contributed to particular development pressure on, and the development of, greenfield sites in and adjacent to the town especially, but not exclusively, to the South and West for example at Sevington.

Ashford

Ashford is a relatively common English placename: it goes back to Old English æscet, indicating a ford near a clump of ash trees. It may refer to:

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Borough

A borough is an administrative division in various countries. In principle, the term borough designates a self-governing walled town, although in practice, official use of the term varies widely.

The word borough derives from common Germanic *Burg, meaning fort: compare with bury, burgh and brough (England), burgh (Scotland), Burg (Germany), borg (Scandinavia), burcht (Dutch), boarch (West Frisian), and the Germanic borrowing present in neighbouring Indo-european languages such as borgo (Italian), bourg (French), burgo (Spanish and Portuguese), burg (Romanian), purg (Kajkavian) and durg (दर्ग) (Hindi) and arg (ارگ) (Persian). The incidence of these words as suffixes to place names (for example, Aldeburgh, Bamburgh, Tilbury, Tilburg, Strasbourg (Strossburi in the local dialect), Luxembourg, Edinburgh, Grundisburgh, Hamburg, Gothenburg) usually indicates that they were once fortified settlements.

In the Middle Ages, boroughs were settlements in England that were granted some self-government; burghs were the Scottish equivalent. In medieval England, boroughs were also entitled to elect members of parliament. The use of the word borough probably derives from the burghal system of Alfred the Great. Alfred set up a system of defensive strong points (Burhs); in order to maintain these settlements, he granted them a degree of autonomy. After the Norman Conquest, when certain towns were granted self-governance, the concept of the burh/borough seems to have been reused to mean a self-governing settlement.