Rainham is a town in the unitary authority area of Medway, in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Gillingham.
Gillingham is a town in the unitary authority area of Medway, in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Chatham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. It is also the largest town in the borough of Medway. In 2020 it had a population of 108,785.
For walkers in Kent there are some notable long-distance footpaths with which to get the measure of the county (and beyond). I’ve never had the time or application to walk the entire length of the North Downs Way, the Pilgrim’s Way or the Saxon Shore Way, but over the years I’ve walked along a good part of each one, stage by disconnected stage.
The Saxon Shore Way has particular relevance for me, as my childhood was spent at one part of it (Whitstable), while I now live at another part (Rochester). The 163-mile path stretches round the Kent and Sussex coastline from Gravesend to Hastings, following not the current shoreline but the coast as was 1,500 years ago, when the Isle of Thanet was still an island, and marshland at Romney and on the north Kent coast had not been reclaimed. It was then that the Romans built a line of forts in response to Saxon raids. It is a ghost coastline, one perfectly designed for contemplating time and its changes.