Gillingham, Kent

Gillingham
Gillingham shown within Kent
Population	99,773 (2001 census)
OS grid reference	TQ775675
- London	35.6mi
Unitary authority	Medway
Ceremonial county	Kent
Region	South East
Constituent country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	GILLINGHAM
Postcode district	ME7
Dialling code	01634
Police	Kent
Fire	Kent
Ambulance	South East Coast
UK Parliament	Gillingham
European Parliament	South East England
List of places: UK • England • Kent

Coordinates: 51°′″N 0°′″E / 51.3792, 0.5498

Gillingham is a town in Kent, England, forming part of the Medway conurbation; it is a constituent of Medway unitary authority. The town includes the settlements of Brompton, Hempstead, Rainham, Rainham Mark, Twydall and Lidsing.

Gillingham means a homestead of Gylla's family, from Old English ham (village, homestead) and ingas (family, followers), and was first recorded in 10th century as Gyllingeham.

Also referred to in old texts as Jillyingham Water, hence the pronunciation being Gillingham (the G sounds as a 'J' as in the girls' name Jill).

Status

Gillingham was created an urban district under the Local Government Act 1894, gaining municipal borough status in 1903. Under the Local Government Act 1972 it became a non-metropolitan district. It merged with the other Medway towns (in the City of Rochester-upon-Medway district) in 1998 under the 1990s UK local government reform.

History

Early history

At the time of the Norman Conquest, Gillingham was a small hamlet; it was given by William the Conqueror to his half-brother Odo of Bayeux. The land was mainly farmland, and Odo rebuilt the parish church of St Mary Magdalene and constructed an archbishop's palace here.

Maritime history

• In medieval times the part of Gillingham known as Grange was a limb of the Cinque Ports, and the maritime importance of the area continued until the late 1940s. Indeed, a large part of Chatham Dockyard lay within Gillingham. The dockyard was founded by Queen Elizabeth I on the site of the present gun wharf, the establishment being transferred to the present site about 1622.

• In 1667 a Dutch fleet sailed up the River Medway and having landed at Queenborough on the Isle of Sheppey, and laying siege to the fort at Sheerness, invaded Gillingham in what became known as the raid on the Medway. The Dutch eventually retreated, but the incident caused great humiliation to the Royal Navy.
• The Seven Years' War began in 1756. The government immediately gave orders for the defence of the dockyard, and by 1758 the Chatham Lines of Defence were built. Over a mile long, they stretched across the neck of the dockyard peninsula, from Chatham Reach, south of the dockyard, across to Gillingham Reach on the opposite side. One of the redoubts on the Lines was at Amherst. The batteries faced away from the dockyard itself to forestall an attack from the landward side; the ships and shore mounted guns on the river were considered sufficient to protect from that side.
• War with France began again in 1778, and once more it was necessary to strengthen the defences. Fort Amherst was the first to be improved; it was followed by work beginning in 1800 to add others at Fort Pitt, Chatham, plus Fort Delce and Fort Clarence (both in Rochester); later in the 19th century others were added, including one at Fort Darland in Gillingham. Within all these buildings a barracks was built to house the soldiers.
• All this work, and the expansion of the dockyard, meant that more homes were needed for the workers. The position of the Lines meant that this building could only happen beyond, and so New Brompton came into being. The population rose to 9,000 people by 1851. Gillingham was still only a small village; eventually it, too, was swallowed up, and the name of the whole settlement changed to Gillingham.
• In 1919, after World War I, a naval war memorial in the shape of a white stone obelisk was set up on the Great Lines, from where it can be seen for many miles; additional structures were added in 1945 to commemorate the dead of World War II. Similar monuments stand in the dockyard towns of Portsmouth and Plymouth.
• The main source of employment was at the dockyard, and when it ceased to be a naval base in 1984, there was huge unemployment. Today much of the area is a World Heritage Site.

Transportation

Roads

The Roman road now known as Watling Street passed through Gillingham; and until the opening of the Medway Towns bypass (the M2 motorway) in the mid-1960s the same route was followed by the traffic on the A2 to Dover. That road had been turnpiked in 1730, as part of the London–Canterbury coaching route.

In June 1996 the Medway Tunnel opened, linking Gillingham with the M2 and Strood.

Railways

The London, Chatham and Dover Railway opened its line between Chatham and Faversham on 25 January 1858; and a country station was opened here called New Brompton. This was to serve the dockyard labourers' homes that had sprung up during the Napoleonic Wars. A branch line led into the dockyard. The station later became Gillingham Railway Station.

Services improved significantly when in July 1939,^[1] Gillingham became the terminus of the electrified system of the Southern Railway.

Military

Brompton Barracks have long been the home of the Royal Engineers. Today the regiment also has a museum there. Kitchener Barracks was one of the main Ghurka Rifles barracks & was home to the 69th Ghurka Regiment.

Leisure

• Gillingham Football Club had played in the English Football League Championship for five seasons before being relegated to League One in May 2005. The towns top non-league team is Hollands & Blair F.C., who play in the Kent County League Premier Division.
• Gillingham Ice Bowl is the home ice rink for Kent's premier Ice Hockey Club the Invicta Dynamos. The Ice Bowl was officially opened by Her Majesty the Queen in 1984.
• The marshland between the town and the River Medway's estuary is an important habitat protected as the Riverside Country Park.
• The area boasts a sub-regional sports centre (the Black Lion Leisure Centre) with three indoor pools for swimming and SCUBA diving, gym, sports hall and squash courts and includes the Jumpers Rebound Centre for trampolining.
• The Strand Leisure Park has an open-air swimming pool on the banks of the River Medway as well as other leisure attractions including tennis courts and a narrow-gauge railway.
• Rainham has a leisure pool (The Splashes) with a flume and a wave machine.
• The 97-roomed King Charles Hotel has conference and banqueting facilities. It used to be the local NAAFI.
• Gillingham has a large street market in the High Street on Saturdays and Mondays. It also has a large Business Park off Watling Street, 3 miles from the city centre.

Churches

A view of Our Lady of Gillingham Catholic Church from behind the Altar.

Within Gillingham there are many churches from different denominations of Christianity. In 1896, Our Lady of Gillingham Roman Catholic Church was built close to the site of the Saint Mary Magdalene Church, which overlooks the River Medway.

A view of Our Lady of Gillingham Catholic Church from behind the Altar.

It followed after other Catholic churches in the area, the closest, St Michael's in Chatham (built 1863). Our Lady of Gillingham was built on the town of New Brompton, as Gillingham was then called, to mainly cater for the new workforce - those employed at Chatham Dockyard. The church itself was started in 1890, and was completed by 1896, being opened on 12th May 1896.

A local Catholic school was established on the site of the church in 1894. The schoolrooms were used until 1972, when the infant section of the school relocated to nearby Greenfield Road. in 1988, after more building work on the new site, the whole school was reunited on its new site at Greenfield Road.

The Church celebrated its centenary in May 1996, two years after the local school.

Notable people associated with Gillingham

• Will Adams - Tudor Nautical Adventurer & Japanese Shogun
• David Harvey - eminent Human Geographer
• Jack Hues - musician
• Brian Moore - sport commentator and journalist
• Gary Rhodes - chef and restaurateur
• Rik Waller - singer, rose to fame through reality TV show "Pop Idol."

Sister cities

Gillingham is twinned with two Japanese cities, Ito and Yokosuka, the latter being the burial place of Will Adams, Gillingham's most famous son.

See also

• Medway
• Chatham
• Rochester
• Rainham
• Strood
• Gillingham Football Club

References

1. ^ Electric Railways. 'Stendec Systems' (2007). Retrieved on 2007-02-16.

External links

• The King Charles Hotel, Gillingham
• Invicta SCUBA Divers at the Black Lion Leisure Centre Next to the King Charles Hotel
• St Mark's Church, New Brompton Includes notes about growth of New Brompton
• Riverside Country Park, New Rainham
• The Medway Portal

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