Gravesend, Kent : Historical writing

Descriptive gazetteer entries

These other entries in our collection of descriptive gazetteers are also about Gravesend. You may be able to find further references to Gravesend in the descriptive gazetteers by doing a full-text search here.

Place Type of entry Source
Gravesend parliamentary and municipal borough, river-port, market town, and parish Bartholomew
GRAVESEND a town, a parish, a sub-district, and a district Imperial

Travel writing

This website includes the complete texts of books describing journeys around Britain, written between the twelfth and nineteenth centuries. Selecting one of the links below will take you to the first reference to Gravesend within the selected text. This will not always be a description of a visit: travellers often mention places other than where they are, for example as a basis for comparison.

Traveller Section No. of Refs.
Daniel Defoe Letter 2, Part 1: Kent Coast and Maidstone 8
William Camden Kent 4
Celia Fiennes 1697: Through Kent to Canterbury and Dover 4
John Wesley 1729-36: Wesley as a Missionary to Georgia 3
Daniel Defoe Letter 1, Part 1: Through Essex to Colchester 2
Karl Moritz Chapter 1: Arrival 2
John Byng A Tour into Kent, 1790 1
William Cobbett Dec. 4th to 5th, 1821: Kentish Journal 1
Daniel Defoe Appendix to letter 1 1
Daniel Defoe Letter 2, Part 3: Hampshire and Surrey 1
Celia Fiennes 1697 Tour: York and Scarborough 1
Paul Hentzner Departure: Canterbury and Dover 1

This website includes two large libraries, of historical travel writing and of entries from nineteenth century gazetteers describing places. We have text from these sources available for these places near your location:

Place Mentioned in Travel Writing Mentioned in Historical Gazetteer
Denton 0 2
Milton 0 2
Chalk 1 2
Ifield 0 2
Rosherville 0 2
Perry Street 0 2
Northfleet 4 2
Tilbury 15 2
Shorne 3 2
Merston 0 2
Toltingtrough 0 2
West Tilbury 0 3
Cobham 1 2
East Tilbury 2 3
Nursted 0 2
Gads Hill 1 2
Little Thurrock 0 3
Southfleet 0 3
Chadwell St Mary 0 2
Higham 0 2

Names from historical writing

The following appear as names for Gravesend. Follow the links for what the author actually said:

Name Author Source
GEREVES END William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
GRAVES END William Camden Britain, or, a Chorographicall Description of the most flourishing Kingdomes, England, Scotland, and Ireland (London: George Bishop and John Norton, 1610).
GRAVESEND John Bartholomew Gazetteer of the British Isles (Edinburgh: Bartholomew, 1887).
John Marius Wilson Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (Edinburgh: A Fullarton & Co., 1870-72).

NB: These variant names come from our collections of historical travel writing and descriptive gazetteers:

  • The above links take you to the first reference to this particular version of the name within a book of travel writing, or to the relevant gazetteer entry.
  • Some names may derive from research by antiquarian writers such as William Camden and Thomas Pennant into the Roman, Saxon and medieval names of places. Their claims are not always supported by modern place-name researchers.
  • References by travel writers to the place using its "normal" name are not included. Descriptive gazetteer entries are included only if the name does not appear anywhere else.