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Gillingham in Kent County England History and GeographyGILLINGHAM, a parish in the hundred of CHATHAM and GILLINGHAM, lathe of AYLESFORD, county of KENT, 1½ mile (E. by N.) from Chatham, containing 6209 inhabitants. The living is a vicarage, in the peculiar jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury, rated in the king's books at £15. 13. 11½., and in the patronage of the Principal and Fellows of Brasenose College, Oxford. The church, dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, was formerly remarkable for containing what was deemed a miraculous image of the Virgin, called 'Our Lady of Gillingham,' to which frequent pilgrimages were made; it is a spacious fabric with a chapel on each side of the chancel, which exhibits some slight portions of Norman architecture. The font is in the same style, very capacious, and surrounded by semicircular arches rising from single pillars: some fragments of the richly stained glass remain, with which most of the windows were formerly filled by the family of Beaufitz, lords of Twydiall, some of whom lie buried here. Memorials of the Romans may be discerned within its walls. On the south side of the church-yard are foundations of an extensive building, once the archiepiscopal palace, the hall of which has been converted into a barn, and where a coin of the Emperor Antoninus has been discovered. There is a place of worship for Wesleyan Methodists. This ancient village, which is recorded in Domesday-book by the name of Gelingeham, though now inconsiderable, was, previously to the rapid rise of the neighbouring town of Chatham, a place of note, and its harbour on the Medway was a principal station for the Royal navy. In the reign of Elizabeth it possessed four quays, viz., Twydall, Midflete, Dean Med End, and Beggar Hyde, together with various ships and boats. Charles I. erected a fort for the protection of the royal dock-yard and navy, which proving ineffectual to resist the Dutch in their celebrated expedition up the river, in 1667, was subsequently enlarged, and distinguished by the name of Gillingham castle, though it was never considered of great strength. At present, however, the entire neighbourhood is strongly fortified with outposts connected with Chatham lines, within which, at the western extremity of the parish, is the populous village of Brompton, situated on the brow of a hill overlooking the royal dock yard of Chatham, and chiefly inhabited by artizans and others employed therein. This parish is within the jurisdiction of a court of requests held in the city of Rochester, for the recovery of debts under £5. Elizabeth Petty, in 1723, bequcathed a rent-charge of £19. 10. a year, for teaching fifteen children of Gillingham and Chatham; and Philip Tidd, in 1733, gave a cottage, garden, orchard, &c., to be occupied by a poor widow of the parish, who should teach six children. Gillingham was anciently much exposed to the ravages of the Danes, and it is asserted that six hundred noblemen, who landed here in the retinue of Alfred and Edward, were murdered upon the spot by Earl Godwin. William of Gillingham, the early historian, who flourished in the reign of Richard II.; and William Adams, the discoverer of Japan, to which island he began his voyage in 1598, were born here. From Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of England 1831, courtesy of Databases 4 Sale |
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