Where to Stay in Gillingham, England

What is Gillingham known for?

Gillingham merges with Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham into one urban stretch along the River Medway, and the Royal Engineers Museum keeps the town's own name on the map of Kent. Warships are preserved nearby. HMS Cavalier, HMS Ocelot and PS Medway Queen survive as museum vessels on the water, while Chatham Historic Dockyard and Fort Amherst stand within the same conurbation.

What are the main landmarks in Gillingham?

Rochester Castle is the best known of the fortifications along the River Medway, with Upnor Castle on the opposite bank and Fort Amherst above Chatham. Ships make the rest. HMS Cavalier, HMS Gannet, HMS Ocelot, U-475 Black Widow, PS Medway Queen and PS Kingswear Castle are all kept as preserved vessels, and Chatham Historic Dockyard gathers the naval buildings around them.

The Royal Engineers Museum, the Kent Police Museum and the Huguenot Museum fill out the list.

What is the history of Gillingham?

The Medway carried everything. A Roman wall and bank at Northgate, later rebuilt as a medieval gatehouse, records the earliest defended line through the towns that would become Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham. Rochester Castle followed.

That stronghold and nearby Upnor Castle guarded the river approach, and the parish churches, the Church of St Nicholas and All Saints Church, Frindsbury, mark where settlement had already gathered on both banks. Naval work came next. Chatham Historic Dockyard and Fort Amherst turned the River Medway into a working naval river, the Former Commissioners House and Attached Staff Accomodation survives from that establishment, and the Royal Engineers Museum belongs to the same military inheritance.

Refugees arrived too. The Huguenot Museum records that strand of settlement among the Medway Towns, while Restoration House and Eastgate House survive from the older streets, and the Guildhall Museum, Rochester holds what the centuries left behind. The towns grew into one.

Gillingham, Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham spread until their edges met, forming the conurbation of the Medway Towns, and Gillingham emerged as the largest town in the borough of Medway. The preserved hulls of HMS Cavalier, HMS Gannet, HMS Ocelot, PS Medway Queen and U-475 Black Widow stand for the naval history that the conurbation inherited.

Where is Gillingham?

Gillingham lies on the River Medway in the north of the English county of Kent, where its streets run into those of Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. Upnor Castle stands across the water. Gillingham is the largest of the five, though they share one continuous urban area rather than a single centre.

The Medway Towns is the name for it.

What is the climate of Gillingham?

The River Medway carries damp air through the towns, and the temperate setting keeps winters mild and summers moderate across the borough of Medway. Frost rarely lasts long. Cloud and rain reach Gillingham in every season, and the valley holds the moisture longer than the open ground of Kent lying behind the built-up stretch.

Chatham and Rochester share the same weather.

How do you get to Gillingham?

Arrivals into Gillingham come through the Medway Towns as a whole, since Chatham, Rochester and Strood run continuously into it and no open country separates them. Rainham adjoins it too. The River Medway is the one real division, and Upnor Castle marks the opposite bank, so places over the water sit on a different approach from the towns themselves.

Kent surrounds the conurbation on the landward side.