Gravesend Leasing

Did You Know?

Gravesend is an ancient town in north west Kent, England, situated 21 miles east-southeast of Charing Cross on the south bank of the Thames Estuary and opposite Tilbury in Essex.

The town was mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 when it was in the hands of Bishop Odo of Bayeux, half-brother of William the Conqueror. The town grew up near the route of the old Roman road of Watling Street, linking London to the coast of southeastern Kent.

The discovery of the Swanscombe skull near Gravesend dates early settlement in the area to the Second Interglacial Period (about 200,000 years ago).

Stone Age implements have been found in the locality since the 1900s, as has evidence of an Iron Age settlement at nearby Springhead. Extensive Roman remains have been found at nearby Vagniacae; and Gravesend lies immediately to the north of the Roman road connecting London with the Kent coast – now called Watling Street.

Gravesend was granted a market charter in 1268, and the market is still held today, which must make it one of the oldest in England. The town was incorporated in the same year, when the first mayor was elected, though curiously Gravesend did not gain a town hall until 1573.

Almost as important as the grant of a town charter was the Royal Charter of 1401 which allowed Gravesend townsfolk to operate ferries to and from London. The ferry service became known as the Long Ferry and was extremely popular as it avoided the perils of travel by road.

Gravesend boasts not one but two historic piers. The oldest is Town Pier, built in 1834 and the oldest example of a cast iron pier anywhere in the world. A restaurant and bar occupy the pier. The Royal Terrace Pier was erected just a decade later, in 1844.

Perhaps the most iconic building in Gravesend is the Clock Tower on Harmer Street. The tower was begun in 1887 to mark the golden anniversary of Queen Victoria's coronation. The cost was an estimated 700 pounds, which was raised by public subscription. The design emulates the Clock Tower of the Palace of Westminster in London.

Pocahontas was buried in Gravesend. The Native American Princess famous for sparing Captain John Smith’s life in Virginia married colonist John Rolfe, and with a dozen others of her tribe she and Rolfe voyaged to England in 1616, meeting James I. Sadly she died of TB when on board a ship off Gravesend about to return to the Americas.