Kent's manufacturing past from Trebor Sweets in Maidstone to GlaxoSmithKline medicine in Dartford

dwright@thekmgroup.co.uk

Published: 06:00, 10 May 2020 | Updated: 13:34, 10 May 2020

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to impact every corner of Kent, businesses across the county are having to adapt to survive.

But even before the Covid-19 crisis struck, Kent has had a long history of big factories going by the wayside, with long-standing sites being forced to close.

Inside the Trebor sweets factory in Maidstone in 1996

Here, we pick out just some of those spots which made scores of products through the decades.

While the gallery below only provides a snapshot of the county's lost factories, it shows a cross-section of Kent's industrial heritage, from Norman Cycles in Ashford to Trebor Sweets in Maidstone.

Residents who lived in the County Town at the time may well remember the sweet smell emitted from the factory, which closed in 2000.

Elsewhere, the Sittingbourne Paper Mill features in the gallery, a site which had grown to become the biggest in the world by the 1930s.

The famous Teston cricket and hockey ball factory near Maidstone is also included, as well as the former GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical site in Dartford.