In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Sittingbourne like this:
SITTINGBOURNE, a town and a parish in Milton district, Kent. The town stands on Watling-street, on Milton creek, and on the London, Chatham, and Dover railway, at the junction of the S. and Sheerness railway, contiguous to Milton, 10 miles ESE of Chatham; was anciently a ba1ting-place for pilgrims to Canterbury; entertained Henry V., on his return to England after Agincourt; was the favourite resting-place of George I. ...
and George II. on their way to Hanover; numbers among its natives Theobald, the hero of the "Dunciad;'' was incorporated by Elizabeth to have a mayor and jurats, and to send members to parliament; made little or no use of its parliamentary franchise; is now a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; consists chiefly of one long old street, and several shorter modern ones; and has a head post-office,‡ a r. station with telegraph, two banking offices, two chief inns, public rooms' a corn exchange, two churches, five dissenting chapels, a recent ultra-mural cemetery, national schools, and several public institutions. A weekly corn-market is held on Friday; bimonthly cattle-markets, on Tuesdays; and fairs, on Whit-Monday and 11 Oct. Some trade is done in the export of corn and bricks, the import of coals, and the dredging for oysters; and a weekly newspaper is published.—The parish comprises 1,008 acres. Real property, £15,944. Pop. in 1851, 2,897; in 1861, 4,301. Houses, 829. The head living is a vicarage, and that of Trinity is a p. curacy, in the diocese of Canterbury. Values were undergoing rearrangement in 1868. Patron, the Archbishop.
Sittingbourne through time
Sittingbourne is now part of Swale district. Click here for graphs and data of how Swale has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Sittingbourne itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Sittingbourne, in Swale and Kent | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/579
Date accessed: 18th April 2024
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