The name Gravesham goes back to the tenth century and beyond; before the Domesday Book, and centuries before the plague came to England. The name Gravesham was the village belonging to the Greeve (Greeve's Ham) and where his authority ended (Greeve's End).
This book looks at the parishes and manors of the borough before the time of the Tudors - an Anglo Saxon settlement was here, as was a royal palace. The rights to a market were granted by the king and right to ferry passengers to London was jealously guarded. Archbishops were born here, the town was destroyed by an invasion from France and survivors from the Wars of the Roses built their homes here.
Virtually everyone wanting to travel from London to Canterbury or Dover had to pass through Gravesham, one way or another.