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Gillingham Leasing

Did You Know?

Gillingham is also the birthplace of the Elizabethan seafarer, William Adams who founded the first Japanese navy and made famous of James' Clavell's novel shogan.

Gillingham was incorporated in 1903 and in 1921 was extended to include Rainham. Many of the inhabitants were employed in the royal dockyard (the greater part of which lay within the borough) until it closed in 1984. The local economy is largely industrial. 

At the time of the Norman Conquest, Gillingham Kent was given to the half-brother of William I of England, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, who rebuilt the parish church at Gillingham Kent and constructed an Archbishop's Palace on land bordered by Grange Road, the ruins of which could still be seen in the last century.

Gillingham, town and port, unitary authority of Medway, geographic and historic county of Kent, southeastern England. It is on the River Medway and is one of the three main communities (along with Chatham and Rochester) that are often called the “Medway Towns.

One of the early buildings around the green was a timber church, of unknown dedication. Sometime around 1070 Archbishop Lanfranc of Canterbury built a new stone church dedicated to St Mary Magdalene. Not surprisingly, Gillingham's parish church is known as 'the Church on the Green'.

In the late 12th century the Archbishops of Canterbury built a palace near the church, with a dormitory to the west and a refectory to the south. The palace precinct covered 20 acres, including the church itself which served as the palace chapel. The palace was suppressed by Henry VIII at the Dissolution of the Monasteries but the church lived on as the parish church for Gillingham.

One of the iconic sites of Gillingham is the laundry tower of the Medway Maritime Hospital. The Grade II listed tower served a naval hospital opened in 1905. The hospital passed from the military to the NHS in 1961. The tower, with its distinctive octagonal vent on a pyramidal roof.

The roots of Gillingham's history go back much further than the naval defences, however! The first settlement probably grew up along the Medway in the 7th century AD, around what is now Gillingham Green.

On a steep ridge between Gillingham and Chatham is a former Field of Fire that formed part of the landward defences protecting Chatham Royal Dockyards. The defences were dubbed the Chatham Lines, and have been preserved as a heritage park.

Gillingham first claimed their Football League status back in 1920 but 17 years later they were voted out of the picture, with Ipswich Town replacing them. When the league expanded to 92 teams 12 years later, however, they regained their status.

In early Gillingham there were two lordships and two churches.  The greater lordship or manor had belonged to Higand and was taken by William the Conqueror for himself.  In King Stephen’s reign it was granted to Earl Hugh Bigod with Stockton, Geldeston, Wyndale, etc.

Gillingham must have been a place of some importance during the time the Batemans owned it 1320-1547 and many of its inhabitants were seafaring men.  In 1291 a Flemish merchant complained that his ship had been plundered at Dunwich, and that the pirates had taken the booty and sold it at Gillingham.