Sittingbourne

Sittingbourne is an industrial town in the Swale district of Kent, southeast England, 17 miles (27 km) from Canterbury and 45 miles (72 km) from London, beside the Roman Watling Street, an ancient trackway used by the Romans and the Anglo-Saxons.

The town stands next to the Swale, a strip of sea separating mainland Kent from the Isle of Sheppey. The town became prominent after the death of Thomas Becket in 1170, since it provided a convenient resting point on the road from London to Canterbury and Dover.

Chatham Main Line links to London Victoria station and HS1 to St Pancras International, the journey taking about an hour from Sittingbourne railway station.

Sittingbourne owes its name to a modernised version of an observation on its location. The town's name came from the fact that there is a small stream or "bourne" running underground in part of the town. Hasted writing in the 1790s in his History of Kent states that:

Sittingbourne was anciently written Sedingbourne, in Saxon, Saedingburga, i.e. the hamlet by the bourne or small stream.

Another explanation is that the name Sittingbourne derives from the Old English sīdeingasburna meaning the 'stream of the dwellers on the slope'.

The Kent Hundred Rolls of 1274–75, preserved in the National Archives, record Sittingbourne as Sydingeburn in the following entries " Item dicunt quod Johannes Maresescall de Synele tenet unam parvam purpresturam in villa de Sydingeburn et solvit domino regi per annum 1d et dominus rex nichil perdit et quod Petrus de London tenet unam parvam purpresturam in villa de Sydingeburn et solvit inde per annum domino regi 1d et rex nichil perdit." Translated as, "Then they say John Marshall de Synele holds one small encroachment in the vill of Sittingbourne and he pays the lord king 1d. each year and the lord king loses nothing and that Peter of London holds one small encroachment in the vill of Sittingbourne and he pays 1d. each year to the lord king and the king loses nothing."

In 1921, the civil parish had a population of 9339. On 31 March 1930 the parish was abolished to form "Sittingbourne and Milton", part also went to Tunstall.