The town of Gravesend on the River Thames is part of the borough.

The Wakefield ancestry is traced back to John Wakefield, who was born about 1614, probably in Gravesend, County Kent, England and immigrated to Virginia aboard the " America " in June 1635, along with his brothers Richard Wakefield and Thomas Wakefield.

The neighborhood of Gravesend, Brooklyn, New York in the United States is said by some to have been named for's-Gravenzande.

The neighborhood of the same name is a community of 60, 000 people in the western part of the peninsula, with Sea Gate to its west, Brighton Beach and Manhattan Beach to its east, and Gravesend to the north.

The Thames and Medway Canal is a disused canal in Kent, south east England, also known as the Gravesend and Rochester Canal.

The oldest iron pleasure pier still remaining is in Southport, England, and dates from 1860-however the world's oldest iron pier dates from 1834 and is in Gravesend, Kent.

The oldest cast iron pier in the world is Gravesend Town Pier, in Kent, which opened in 1834.

Control of ship traffic on the Thames within the Port is orchestrated from two Port Control centres-one at the Thames Barrier ( the Thames Barrier Navigation Centre ) in Woolwich, for reaches upstream of Erith, and the other at Gravesend ( the main Port Control ) for reaches downstream of Erith.

The PLA owns Denton Wharf and Jetty in Gravesend, which is the main base for the authority's vessels and where the PLA maintains its fleet of over 40 vessels, the team also provides lift-out and maintenance services for other River users.

Gravesend is a town in northwest Kent, England, on the south bank of the Thames, opposite Tilbury in Essex.

The Domesday spelling is the only historical record ; all other spellings – in the later ( c. 1100 ) Domesday Monarchorum and in Textus Roffensis the town is Gravesend / Gravesende.

This is clearly not the case as the plague was in 1665 – a full 500 years after the name Gravesend / Gravesende was first recorded ( see above ).

At Fort Gardens is the New Tavern Fort built during the 1780s and extensively rebuilt by General Gordon between 1865 and 1879: it is now a museum, partly open air, under the care of the Gravesend Local History Society.

Gravesend is part of, and is the principal town of, the borough of Gravesham.

The site of Gravesend is at a point where the high land – the lowest point of the dip slope of the North Downs – reaches the river bank.

The Brogdale weather station, which is run by a volunteer, only reports its data once a month ; Gravesend, which is a Met Office site, reports its data each hour.

The Kent Downs lie to the south of Gravesend, although it is not known if this causes Gravesend to experience Foehn winds that occur as a result of adiabatic warming.

Gravesend today is a busy commercial town.

Gravesend " watermen " were often in a family trade ; and the town is the headquarters of the Port of London Authority Port Control Centre ( formerly known as " Thames Navigation Service "), supplying both river and sea pilots.

" In Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part 1, Falstaff and three roguish friends of Prince Hal also waylay unwary travellers on the highway from Gravesend to Rochester, a scene also present in The Famous Victories of Henry the Fift.

Gravano also became the operator of a popular discotheque, The Plaza Suite, in the Gravesend section of Brooklyn.

Gravesend, being inland and yet relatively close to continental Europe, has a somewhat more continental climate than the coastal areas of Kent, Essex and East Anglia and also compared to western parts of Britain.

Gravesend also has one of the oldest regattas in England again showing its strong links to the river.

Gravesend also has two rugby teams, Gravesend RFC and Old Gravesendians, both situated next to each other and opposite Gravesend Grammar School.

Gravesend is briefly mentioned in two other novels: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley during Victor's travels through the United Kingdom with Clerval ; ultimately culminating in Victor's residence in the Orkney Islands ; and also in the novel Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad.

It is also possible to hear in the background steam engines working out of the Gravesend West Line West Street terminus.

Gravesend and Northfleet have also been managed in the recent past by Andy Ford, who resigned after a GLS Cup game after an extended run of poor fixtures, only to pursue a coaching job at Stevenage Borough a few months later.

Gravesend is served by three lines of the New York City Subway system: the D elevated line ( also called the BMT West End Line ), at the 25th Avenue and Bay 50th Street stations ; the F elevated line ( also called the IND Culver Line ), at the Kings Highway, Avenue U, and Avenue X stations, and the N open-cut line, ( also called the BMT Sea Beach Line ), at the Kings Highway, Avenue U, and Gravesend / 86th Street stations.

In August 1776 Gravesend Bay was the landing site of thousands of British soldiers and German mercenaries from their staging area on Staten Island, leading to the Battle of Long Island ( also Battle of Brooklyn ).

McKane also rigged the political machine in Gravesend by stuffing the town voter registries with as many names as he could scrape up.

Mob Boss Carlo Gambino also lived much of his life in Gravesend.

The religious freedom of early Gravesend made it a desirable home for ostracized or controversial groups, such as the Quakers, who briefly made their home in the town before being chased out by New Netherland director general Petrus Stuyvesant, who was wary of Gravesend's open acceptance of " heretical " sects.

His nephew, the fifth Earl ( who succeeded his father in 1900 ), briefly represented Gravesend in the House of Commons as a Conservative and was also Lord Lieutenant of Staffordshire.

Born in Liverpool, Ashcroft began his career with several local sides, briefly signing as an amateur with Everton, before moving south and joining Southern League side Gravesend United in 1899.

Gravesend and its environs are mentioned in at least two of his novels.

Gravesend is mentioned in Ridley Scott's 2010 film Robin Hood.

In 1661 John Evelyn recorded a competition between Katherine and Anne, two large royal sailing vessels both of English design, "… the wager 100-1 ; the race from Greenwich to Gravesend and back .” One of the vessels was owned, and sometimes steered, by Charles II, the King of England.

The inaugural flight into Rochester was from Gravesend, John Parker flying their Short Scion G-ACJI.

A dingy and unmodernised Gravesend was the backdrop to the 1952 thriller The Long Memory starring Sir John Mills.

The 1952 film " The Long Memory " starring John Mills was filmed in and around Gravesend.

The man who spearheaded this metamorphosis was John Y. McKane, a Sheepshead Bay carpenter and contractor who rose to become the Gravesend town supervisor, chief of police, chief of detectives, fire commissioner, schools commissioner, public lands commissioner, superintendent of the Sheepshead Bay Methodist Church, head tenor of the church choir, and, last but not least, Santa Claus at the annual Sabbath school Christmas celebration.

* John Bazley White ( 1848 – 1927 ), British Member of Parliament for Gravesend, 1886 – 1892

Following the request, the Reverend John Doty embarked during the month of April 1784 at Gravesend, England, and arrived at Quebec in June, and at Sorel on the 4th July 1784, where he celebrated Divine Service and preached his first sermon.

Burns departed for Gravesend & Northfleet in December 1982 to be replaced by John Keirs, who took the club to fourth place in the 1983 – 84 season, promotion only denied to the Angels on the final day of the season.

* John Ovenden, Labour MP for Gravesend 1974 to 1979, and Leader of Kent County Council from 1994-7