Gravesend. Gravesend is an ancient town in northwest Kent, England, situated 21 miles east-southeast of Charing Cross on the south bank of the Thames Estuary and opposite Tilbury in Essex. Located in the diocese of Rochester, it is the administrative centre of the Borough of Gravesham. Its geographical situation has given Gravesend strategic importance throughout the maritime and communications history of South East England. A Thames Gateway commuter town, it retains strong links with the River Thames, not least through the Port of London Authority Pilot Station and has witnessed rejuvenation since the advent of High Speed 1 rail services via Gravesend railway station. Recorded as Gravesham in the Domesday Book of 1086 when it belonged to Odo, Earl of Kent and Bishop of Bayeux, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, its name probably derives from graaf-ham: the home of the reeve or bailiff of the lord of the manor. Another theory suggests that the name Gravesham may be a corruption of the words grafs-ham-a place at the end of the grove. Frank Carr asserts that the name derives from the Saxon Gerevesend, the end of the authority of the Portreeve. In the Netherlands, a place called 's-Gravenzande is found with its name translating into Sand belonging to the Count. The s is a contraction of the old Dutch genitive article des, and translates into plain English as of the. In Brooklyn, New York, the neighbourhood of Gravesend is said by some to have been named for 's-Gravenzande. Though its founding by the English religious dissenter, Lady Deborah Moody, in 1645 strongly indicates that it is named after Gravesend, England. Lady Deborah was originally from London and is credited with being the first woman to found a settlement in the new world. The Domesday spelling is its earliest known historical record; all other spellings-in the later Domesday Monachorum and in Textus Roffensis the town is Gravesend and Gravesende, respectively. The variation Graveshend can be seen in a court record of 1422, where Edmund de Langeford was parson, and attributed to where the graves ended after the Black Death. The municipal title Gravesham was formally adopted in 1974 as the name for the new borough. 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. Domesday Book recorded mills, hythes, and fisheries here. Milton Chantry is Gravesend's oldest surviving building and dates from the early 14th century. It was refounded as a chapel in 1320/21 on the original site of a former leper hospital founded in 1189. It is a Grade II* listed building. Gravesend has one of the oldest surviving markets in the country. Its earliest charter dates from 1268, with town status being granted to the two parishes of Gravesend and Milton by King Henry III in its Charter of Incorporation of that year. The first Mayor of Gravesend was elected in 1268, although the first Town Hall was not built until 1573, being replaced in 1764 with a new frontage added in 1836. Although it ceased to be a town hall in 1968 when the new Gravesend Civic Centre was opened, it remains in use as Magistrates' Courts, and in 2004, following a full refurbishment funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and grants from Kent County Council and Gravesham Borough Council, the Old Town Hall now thrives as a venue for weddings and private functions as well as community and public events. In 1380, during the Hundred Years' War, Gravesend suffered being sacked and burned by the Castilian fleet. In 1401, a further Royal Charter was granted, allowing the men of the town to operate boats between London and the town; these became known as the Long Ferry. It became the preferred form of passage, because of the perils of road travel. On Gravesend's river front are the remains of a device fort built by command of King Henry VIII in 1543. On 21 March 1617, John Rolfe and Rebecca, the native American Pocahontas, with their two-year-old son, Thomas, boarded a ship in London bound for the Commonwealth of Virginia; the ship had only sailed as far as Gravesend before Rebecca fell fatally ill, and she died shortly after she was taken ashore. It is not known what caused her death.