Gillingham means a homestead of Gylla's family, from Old Englishham (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).
The name Gillingham is recorded already in the Domesday book of 1086. It is said that it was named after a war lord, Gyllingas--from the old English "gyllan" meaning "to shout". He was a notable man in Kent history as he led his warriors into battle screaming and shouting. 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.
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 started in Gillingham, and that, until the day it was closed in 1984, two thirds of the then modern-day dockyard lay within the boundaries of 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.
Disasters
Gillingham has been the scene of two notable disasters: on 11 July1929 a public demonstration by Gillingham Fire Brigade went tragically wrong, resulting in 15 fatalities;[1] and in the 1951 Gillingham bus disaster, 24 Royal Marine cadets aged 10 to 13 were killed in a road accident.
Economy
The main source of employment was at the Chatham Dockyard, which 2/3 of it lays within the boundaries of Gillingham itself; 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. Since then, Gillingham has rebuilt it's economic base and the Gillingham Business Park was set up in order to attract investments and diversify economic activity. The buisness park is one of the most popular business locations in North Kent and is located about two miles north of the M2 motorway. Gillingham has a marina called Gillingham Marina.
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.
Services improved significantly when in July 1939,[2] 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.
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 12 May1896.
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 - Nautical Adventurer & advisor to Tokugawa Ieyasu
