History

Origin of the name 'Gravesend'

A town is recorded when Gravesham in the Domesday Book in 1086 as belonging to Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and called 'Gravesham': the title probably from either "graaf-ham": a house of the Reeve, or even Bailiff, of the Lord of the Manor. the second theory suggests that the title Gravesham can be a corruption of the words grafs-ham - a place 'at a prevent of the grove'. Myth has it that Gravesend had its title because, when you took a irruption of Bubonic Plague in the 1600s, a town was a place in which hikers were there are no yearn buried toward land - it were buried bewildered (the town sits next to the Thames Estuary).

Extensive Roman remains have been incurred nearby, at Vagniacae (now’s Springhead). Gravesend lies immediately northward of their Watling Street.

Gravesend has one of a oldest living markets in the united states, its earliest charter dating from either 1268. Town status was granted to the ii parishes of Gravesend & Milton, the Charter of Incorporation existence received in this month. A number 1 City manager of Gravesend was elected in this month, although a number 1 Town Hall was within place by 1573: it was replaced in 1764. The fresh frontage was built within 1836. Although its utilise when a Town Hall come to an prevent withinside 1968, once a newly Civic Centre was opened, it continued in have as a Judge' Courts. Now (2004) these come obsolete, & discussions are existence held by using the watch to its first.

On a flow of any stream front is recorded the archeologic remains of a riverside fort built at the command of Henry VIII in 1543.

General Gordon

Gravesend is associated sustaining General Gordon (1833-1885), who sleep in a town in the period of the construction of the Thames forts. For sextet years he devoted himself to the welfare of the towns 'unfortunate boys', establishing the Sunday school & providing food & material for the children from either his Army pay. Around command of a Royal Engineers from either either 1865-71, he was responsible the forts that guard the Thames downriver from Gravesend, New Tavern Fort in the town, Shornemead Fort on the south bank, & Coalhouse Fort on the north. His links by having Gravesend come commemorated: a embankment of a Riverside Leisure Vicinity is referred to as the Gordon Promenade, when Khartoum Place lies upright in the south.

Gravesend clock tower, Harmer Street

A town’s clock tower was built at a top of Harmer street. A foundatiin stone was placed on 6 September 1887. A memorial stone states that a clock tower was erected by public subscription (£700 was raised toward its construction) & it was dedicated to Queen Victoria, to commemorate the 50th season of her yearn reign. Built using Portl& and Dumfries stone, backed by owning stiff option brickwork, a project of a structure was according to the Westminster tower that houses Big Ben. A centre of a clock itself is measured at Fifty foot above a ground & the face is 5ft 6ins from side to side.

St George's church

St George's church, simply opposite a pier, was restored inside 1731 around the Georgian style of the period, fallowing getting antecedently burnt down in August 1727 when a great fire consumed much of Gravesend destroying astir 110 houses & a parish church, services existence transferred to a town hall until the church was rebuilt. A parish records were wasted in a fire and then that the places of the burial of the native U.s. princess Pocahontas has also been misused.

Pocahontas

Pocahontas was to become a 1st Native American to visit England, and so Europe. the girl of Powhatan, chief of the Powhatan confederacy of Indian tribes, she inherit call for around 1607 by owning a class action of English settlers at Jamestown, in Virginia. a legend was natural whilst she famously kept a pioneer Captain John Smith from either either either a quick threat of dying from an Indian predatory person which descended upon a pitiable settlers, by shielding a Captain from the hatchet blows of his capturer by throwing herself upon him.

What is sure as shooting avowedly is that, when John Smith experienced returned to Engl& she was processed a surety per English settlers to attempt the procurance of serious behaviour from either the Powhatan tribes, and that his girl was falsely informed that Smith got died. She late sailed by owning Rolfe to Engl&, by owning their child boy, Thomas, inside which she was received at the court in London by Queen Anne, and, something of a celebrity, was 'obsessed by society'.

These are reported she met higher sustaining John Smith inside London & that a shock broke her heart. She down a road died inside board the vessel at Gravesend in March 1617, prior to her homeward-bound journey, & is buried in the parish god's acre of St Georges, although the accurate location of her grave is unknown.

Gravesend Hospital

Gravesend Hospital was opened within 1854, following the donation of a places per Earl of Darnley in 1853; it had its origin in 2 December 1850, as a dispensary on the Milton road 'to assist the really destitute unfortunate of Gravesend & Milton & locality ... unable to invite medical help'. By 1893, 4699 such people experienced benefited by its presence.

Around 2004 the original building was demolished to make way for the fresh local health centre. [http://www.kentandmedway.nhs.uk/news_and_publications/future_directions/gravesham_community_project/default.asp Details are here]

Windmill Hill

Windmill Hill known as for its old windmills, offers extensive views across the Thames, & was a popular spot for Victorian visitant to the town, because of the Camera obscura installed in the old mill & for its tea gardens and more amusements. the hill was a places of a beacon around 1377, which was instituted by Richard II, and however inside utilise 200 years late at a instance of the Spanish Armada, although the hill was so referred to as 'Rouge Hill'. a modern beacon was erected & lit in the period of 1988, the 300th day of remembrance.

It was when you took a reign of Elizabeth I that the 1st windmill was placed within top a greatest point in Gravesend, 179 foot above a highwater mark of the flow of any stream. A single mill burnt down withwithin 1763, however was replaced a as punishment month & that as well razed in 1894. A previous surviving windmill was destroyed by fire in the period of Mafeking Night celebrations in 1900.

Communications

The River Thames

Shipping on the river

A River Thames has long been an crucial feature inside Gravesend life & could swell keep close at hand been a determinant factor for the number one award on text. One of a town's number one distinctions was within existence given a resole best to transfer rider to & from either London by a river in the late 14th century. A ‘Tilt Boat’ was the familiar sight on the flow of any stream. A foremost steamboat plied its trade between Gravesend & London in the early 19th century, bringing with it the steadily increasing total of visitant to The Terrace Pier Gardens, Windmill Hill, Springhead Gardens & Rosherville Gardens. Gravesend presently became one of a foremost English resort towns & thrived from either an early tourer trade.

Gravesend ‘watermen’ were typically within a personal trade; & the town is the headquarters of the Port of London Authority Thames Navigation Service, supplying both flow of any stream & sea pilots. Now radiolocation plays an crucial a share in the movement of transport on the flow of any stream.

Until a building of Tilbury Docks on a opposite side of the flow of any stream, between 1882-6, Gravesend was the 1st port of entry. Hundreds to thousands of emigree, besides when big many troops, embarked from either on this text. Tilbury Docks own expanded substantially since sustaining a closure of all the London Docks. A entrance to the Docks is somewhat awkward, placed when these are on the sharply bend of the flow of any stream, & typically require tugboat assistance, as run a big ships moored at Tilbury landing stages. There use been numbers of tug corporations depending at Gravesend: among a babies a Sun Company, a Alexandra Towing Company &, now, the Smith Howard Towing Company.

Too on a flow of any stream front occurs as ticket case of the cast cast-iron pier, the unique structure sustaining the number one known iron cylinders utilized for its foundation. from either either on this button a steamboat services experienced begun from London inside 1815. A pier has recently been entirely refurbished (2004), & awaits commercial utilise.

the flow of any stream however plays a vital a share in the life of the community in todays world, providing an significant hyperlink for industry & jobs to the profit of several population. A cross-flow of any stream rider ferry to Tilbury provides a long-established route to & from either a neighboring County of Essex. Prior to a Dartford Crossing came into being ton text was the vehicle ferry here too.

Gravesend Regatta

Row matches use at times been ingesting place on a flow of any stream Thames at Gravesend since from either at least a season of 1698, & the foremost unionised Regatta was around 1715. A foremost Borough Regatta began within 1882, setting a pattern for an annual event in the Thames that is carried on to this day. A popularity of the early cases keep around recently begun to go to, thanks to very much Borough Council publicity.

Road communications

Journeying by road to Gravesend were when quite wild, since a independent London-Dover road crossed Blackheath, notorious for its highwaymen. Stagecoaches from London to Canterbury, Dover and Faversham used Gravesend as a single their ’stages’ when did people coming n from either Tonbridge. Within 1840 there were 17 coaches picking higher & setting down rider & changing horses every way by the day. There were ii coaching job auberge in a Just released Road: a Newly Prince of Orange & the Lord Nelson. Stage got been plying a route for at least deuce centuries: Samuel Pepys records having stopped hit at Gravesend inside 1650.

Now, a A226 road from either Gravesend to Rochester runs beside the Thames & offers the amercement review of the Hoo Peninsula. A A2 road passes two miles south of Gravesend town centre, when the A226 as well will bring a hyperlink westward to Dartford and the Dartford Crossing.

Rail communications

A number 1 railway connection come when a London & Greenwich Railway (sanctioned in 1833, opened in 1836) extended its line through Woolwich and Dartford to Gravesend railway station in the summer of 1849. Within 1844 a railway to a east of the town had been opened using the Higham burrow of the Thames & Medway Canal (view following); the old London & Greenwich, now the South Eastern Railway, bought this in 1847, opening through services between London and the Medway towns two years later.

Gravesend okay, stands on the recently Eurostar main line, and whenever a connection is opened to St Pancras station around London in 2006 there will be the train depot at Ebbsfleet, to the west of the town.

Thames and Medway Canal

A Thames and Medway Canal was opened for barge traffic inside 1824, but fallowing lone Xx years it experienced proved as well hard a route for navigation between the Thames & Medway & was left to silt higher. From either 1844, the canal's burrow was wont to provide the route for the railway. This vary of have arose due to the differing tides between them streams, lakes, and wells throughout; the steam engine often had to exist as utilized to pump a water supply into a Higham tunnel to compensate for low tides. a steam tug was besides wont to assist by using the pull of the flatboat through the burrow.

Now a canal basinside at a Gravesprevent end of a Canal is utilized for cabin cruiser: the lock is however in have. At a present period (December 2004) these are existence dredged & restoration & strengthening works is carried intent on the basin bulwarks when a share of regeneration of the metropolitan area.

Other notes of interest

within a period of a instance General Gordon was in Gravesend (1865-71) the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was anorth officer in the Russian Navy and was posted to Gravesend, in which he wrote section of his 1st symphony, said to exist as the number one ever such style of composition attempted by a Russian composer.

Per flow of any stream some Northfleet, on what became a property of a purple paper mills there was another time a pool which experienced a curious tendency of draining once the flow of any stream was at fully tide & replenish whenever the tide subsided. This unknown behaviour was explained per immersion of a springs that fed a pool using a tidal waters, while a tides receded a springs were again respire to drain into the pool.

In 10 August 2003, Gravesend recorded the heat since records began in the United Kingdom, with the reading of 38.I Celsius (C.6F). This record high was surpassed within 2004, even so, by a second recording station. Of these explanation for a phenomenon was a big total of earthworks around connection by having the Channel Tunnel Rail Link, which had studied much of the local sandlike soil, which reflected further sunshine!

In the period of a 70s & early 80s, a town was the personal of a super successful youth marching band, the "Gravesham Corps of Drums" (recently a "Gravesham Corps"). A band finished third within the British Championships in 1981.

At nearby Higham, the Falstaff Inn requires its title from either the scene assault the Gravesend-Rochester road in the play Henry V by William Shakespeare.

Population

Since 1801, Gravesend has grown from existence the little riverside class action settlement to be the major town. Its people inside 1831 was 5079; by 1921 this had risen to 31,137, & by 1971 to 54,071.