Gillingham, Dorset
Encyclopedia
Gillingham is a town in the Blackmore Vale
area of Dorset
, England
. The town is the most northerly in the county. It is 3 miles south of the A303 lying on the B3092 and B3081. It is near to the town of Shaftesbury
which lies 7 miles to the south east. Neighbouring hamlets included Peacemarsh
, Bay and Wyke. These hamlets have now however become part of Gillingham as it expanded.
Gillingham is pronounced with a hard initial 'G' as in 'gas'. It is not to be confused with Gillingham
in Kent, in which the initial 'G' is pronounced like the 'J' in the name 'Jill'.
barrow
in the town, and evidence of Roman
settlement in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The town was really established by the Saxons
. The church of St Mary the Virgin
has a Saxon
cross
shaft dating to 800-900AD.
The name Gillingham was used for the town in the Saxon charter
of the 10th century, and also in the annals of 1016 as the location of a battle
between Edmund II of England and the Danish Vikings. In the Domesday book
of 1086 it is Gelingham, and later spellings include Gellingeham in 1130, Gyllingeham in 1152 and Gilingeham in 1209. The name implies a “homestead of the family or followers of a man called Gylla”, a model consistent with the occupation of Dorset by the Saxons from the 7th century.
In October 1348, fifty percent of the 2,000 people living in the town died of the Black Death
in the following four months.
In the Middle Ages
, Gillingham was the seat of a royal hunting lodge, visited by King Henry I
, Henry II
, John
and Henry III
. A nearby royal forest was set aside for the king's deer
. The lodge fell into disrepair and was destroyed in 1369 by Edward III
.
Edward Rawson
, the first secretary to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
, was born in Gillingham.
Gillingham became a centre for local farming, gained the first Grammar School
in Dorset in 1526 and a mill for silk
in 1769. Gillingham's church has a 14th century chancel
, though most of the rest of the building was built in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many other buildings in the town are of Tudor
origin.
In the 1850s, the arrival of the railway to the town brought prosperity and new industries including brickmaking, cheese
production, printing
, soap
manufacture and at the end of the 19th century one of the first petrol engine
plants in the country. In the Second World War
Gillingham's place on the railway, which went from London
to Exeter
, was key to its rapid growth. In 1940 and 1941 there was large scale evacuation
of London, and other industrial cities, to rural towns, particularly in the north, southwest and Wales
. Gillingham, being on the railway, grew rapidly because of this, and has not stopped growing since. Gillingham's position 4 miles south of the A303, the main London to southwest England road, means it remains a popular commuter town.
Gillingham was the centre of a Liberty
of the same name. John Constable
's painting of the old town bridge is in the Tate Gallery
.
is on the Exeter
to London
railway line, and 4 miles away from the A303, the main London to south-west England road. Salisbury is approximately 30 minutes away by train, and 50 minutes by car.
Gillingham is home to North Dorset Rugby Football Club
.
Gillingham was home to an annual 10 day festival of music and sport, the last event was held in 2009 featuring acts as diverse as the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Jon Otway, Attila The Stockbroker and Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich. Lack of funding and the recession have prevented the event from continuing since then.
Gillingham is home to Legends. Situated in the heart of the industrial estate, it is the only night club in North Dorset.
See List of hundreds in Dorset.
Blackmore Vale
The Blackmore Vale is a vale, or wide valley, in north Dorset, and to a lesser extent south Somerset and southwest Wiltshire in southern England. The vale is part of the Stour valley...
area of Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The town is the most northerly in the county. It is 3 miles south of the A303 lying on the B3092 and B3081. It is near to the town of Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury
Shaftesbury is a town in Dorset, England, situated on the A30 road near the Wiltshire border 20 miles west of Salisbury. The town is built 718 feet above sea level on the side of a chalk and greensand hill, which is part of Cranborne Chase, the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset...
which lies 7 miles to the south east. Neighbouring hamlets included Peacemarsh
Peacemarsh
Peacemarsh is a part of the town of Gillingham in the north of Dorset. It lies on the northern side of town, on the B3095 about 4 miles south of the A303. A neighbouring village is Milton-on-Stour, while other areas of Gillingham include Wyke and Bay....
, Bay and Wyke. These hamlets have now however become part of Gillingham as it expanded.
Gillingham is pronounced with a hard initial 'G' as in 'gas'. It is not to be confused with Gillingham
Gillingham, Kent
Gillingham is a town in the unitary authority of Medway in South East England. It is part of the ceremonial county of Kent. The town includes the settlements of Brompton, Hempstead, Rainham, Rainham Mark and Twydall....
in Kent, in which the initial 'G' is pronounced like the 'J' in the name 'Jill'.
History
There is a stone ageStone Age
The Stone Age is a broad prehistoric period, lasting about 2.5 million years , during which humans and their predecessor species in the genus Homo, as well as the earlier partly contemporary genera Australopithecus and Paranthropus, widely used exclusively stone as their hard material in the...
barrow
Tumulus
A tumulus is a mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves. Tumuli are also known as barrows, burial mounds, Hügelgrab or kurgans, and can be found throughout much of the world. A tumulus composed largely or entirely of stones is usually referred to as a cairn...
in the town, and evidence of Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
settlement in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. The town was really established by the Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
. The church of St Mary the Virgin
St Mary the Virgin's Church, Gillingham, Dorset
St Mary's Church is the parish church for the town of Gillingham in the Blackmore Vale in the north of Dorset. The church is in the Diocese of Salisbury in the Church of England, and part of the Anglican Communion....
has a Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
cross
Christian cross
The Christian cross, seen as a representation of the instrument of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, is the best-known religious symbol of Christianity...
shaft dating to 800-900AD.
The name Gillingham was used for the town in the Saxon charter
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
of the 10th century, and also in the annals of 1016 as the location of a battle
Battle
Generally, a battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, or combatants. In a battle, each combatant will seek to defeat the others, with defeat determined by the conditions of a military campaign...
between Edmund II of England and the Danish Vikings. In the Domesday book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
of 1086 it is Gelingham, and later spellings include Gellingeham in 1130, Gyllingeham in 1152 and Gilingeham in 1209. The name implies a “homestead of the family or followers of a man called Gylla”, a model consistent with the occupation of Dorset by the Saxons from the 7th century.
In October 1348, fifty percent of the 2,000 people living in the town died of the Black Death
Black Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
in the following four months.
In the Middle Ages
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
, Gillingham was the seat of a royal hunting lodge, visited by King Henry I
Henry I of England
Henry I was the fourth son of William I of England. He succeeded his elder brother William II as King of England in 1100 and defeated his eldest brother, Robert Curthose, to become Duke of Normandy in 1106...
, Henry II
Henry II of England
Henry II ruled as King of England , Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, Lord of Ireland and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland and western France. Henry, the great-grandson of William the Conqueror, was the...
, John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
and Henry III
Henry III of England
Henry III was the son and successor of John as King of England, reigning for 56 years from 1216 until his death. His contemporaries knew him as Henry of Winchester. He was the first child king in England since the reign of Æthelred the Unready...
. A nearby royal forest was set aside for the king's deer
Deer
Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. Species in the Cervidae family include white-tailed deer, elk, moose, red deer, reindeer, fallow deer, roe deer and chital. Male deer of all species and female reindeer grow and shed new antlers each year...
. The lodge fell into disrepair and was destroyed in 1369 by Edward III
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
.
Edward Rawson
Edward Rawson (politician)
Edward Rawson served as the first Secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Colony.Edward Rawson was born in Dorset, England in 1615. Around 1636 he married his young wife, Rachel Perne, and soon left England for the Americas. He settled in Newbury in 1637...
, the first secretary to the Massachusetts Bay Colony
Massachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
, was born in Gillingham.
Gillingham became a centre for local farming, gained the first Grammar School
Grammar school
A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...
in Dorset in 1526 and a mill for silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
in 1769. Gillingham's church has a 14th century chancel
Chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar in the sanctuary at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building...
, though most of the rest of the building was built in the 19th and 20th centuries. Many other buildings in the town are of Tudor
Tudor dynasty
The Tudor dynasty or House of Tudor was a European royal house of Welsh origin that ruled the Kingdom of England and its realms, including the Lordship of Ireland, later the Kingdom of Ireland, from 1485 until 1603. Its first monarch was Henry Tudor, a descendant through his mother of a legitimised...
origin.
In the 1850s, the arrival of the railway to the town brought prosperity and new industries including brickmaking, cheese
Cheese
Cheese is a generic term for a diverse group of milk-based food products. Cheese is produced throughout the world in wide-ranging flavors, textures, and forms....
production, printing
Printing
Printing is a process for reproducing text and image, typically with ink on paper using a printing press. It is often carried out as a large-scale industrial process, and is an essential part of publishing and transaction printing....
, soap
Soap
In chemistry, soap is a salt of a fatty acid.IUPAC. "" Compendium of Chemical Terminology, 2nd ed. . Compiled by A. D. McNaught and A. Wilkinson. Blackwell Scientific Publications, Oxford . XML on-line corrected version: created by M. Nic, J. Jirat, B. Kosata; updates compiled by A. Jenkins. ISBN...
manufacture and at the end of the 19th century one of the first petrol engine
Petrol engine
A petrol engine is an internal combustion engine with spark-ignition, designed to run on petrol and similar volatile fuels....
plants in the country. In the Second World War
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Gillingham's place on the railway, which went from London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, was key to its rapid growth. In 1940 and 1941 there was large scale evacuation
Evacuations of civilians in Britain during World War II
Evacuation of civilians in Britain during the Second World War was designed to save the population of urban or military areas in the United Kingdom from aerial bombing of cities and military targets such as docks. Civilians, particularly children, were moved to areas thought to be less at risk....
of London, and other industrial cities, to rural towns, particularly in the north, southwest and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. Gillingham, being on the railway, grew rapidly because of this, and has not stopped growing since. Gillingham's position 4 miles south of the A303, the main London to southwest England road, means it remains a popular commuter town.
Gillingham was the centre of a Liberty
Gillingham (liberty)
Gillingham Liberty was a liberty in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes:Gillingham Liberty was a liberty in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes:...
of the same name. John Constable
John Constable
John Constable was an English Romantic painter. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for his landscape paintings of Dedham Vale, the area surrounding his home—now known as "Constable Country"—which he invested with an intensity of affection...
's painting of the old town bridge is in the Tate Gallery
Tate Gallery
The Tate is an institution that houses the United Kingdom's national collection of British Art, and International Modern and Contemporary Art...
.
Today
In the 2001 census, the town had a population of 9,323; a large increase from 6,187 in 1991, but the population is now estimated at approximately 12,000. 35% of the population are retired. The town has 70 shops, and the Gillingham education area has 7 primary schools (4 in the town) and 1 secondary school. Gillingham railway stationGillingham (Dorset) railway station
Gillingham railway station is in Gillingham in Dorset England. It opened in 1859 on the London Waterloo to Exeter line from London, and is managed by South West Trains.-History:...
is on the Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
railway line, and 4 miles away from the A303, the main London to south-west England road. Salisbury is approximately 30 minutes away by train, and 50 minutes by car.
Gillingham is home to North Dorset Rugby Football Club
North Dorset Rugby Football Club
North Dorset RFC is a rugby union club in Gillingham, Dorset, who have been in existence since 1951. They currently play in the Southern Counties South league after being promoted from the Dorset and Wilts Leagues at the end of the 2004/5 season...
.
Gillingham was home to an annual 10 day festival of music and sport, the last event was held in 2009 featuring acts as diverse as the National Youth Jazz Orchestra, Jon Otway, Attila The Stockbroker and Dozy Beaky Mick and Tich. Lack of funding and the recession have prevented the event from continuing since then.
Gillingham is home to Legends. Situated in the heart of the industrial estate, it is the only night club in North Dorset.
See List of hundreds in Dorset.