Editing Gravesend (section)

==Name==
[[File:Gravesend Town Hall-geograph.org-3552497.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Gravesend Town Hall]]]]
Recorded as [[Gravesham]] in the [[Domesday Book]] of 1086 when it belonged to [[Odo, Earl of Kent]] and [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Bayeux|Bishop of Bayeux]], the half-brother of [[William the Conqueror]], its name probably derives from ''graaf-ham'': the home of the [[sheriff|reeve]] or bailiff of the [[lord of the manor]].

Another theory suggests that the name ''Gravesham'' may be a corruption of the words ''grafs-ham'' – a place "at the end of the grove".<ref>[[Paul Theroux]]'s report that "the town bore the name of Gravesend because east of it, the dead had to be buried at sea", is unsupported (Theroux, ''The Kingdom by the Sea'' 1983:19).</ref> Frank Carr<ref>{{cite book|first=Frank|last=Carr|title=Sailing Barges|date=1939|publisher=Terence Dalton Ltd, Suffolk, UK}}</ref> asserts that the name derives from the Saxon ''Gerevesend'', the end of the authority of the [[Portreeve]] (originally ''Portgereve'', chief town administrator).

In the [[Netherlands]], a place called [['s-Gravenzande]] is found with its name translating into "Sand (or sandy area) belonging to the Count". The ''{{'}}s'' is a contraction of the old Dutch genitive article ''des'', and translates into plain English as ''of the''. In [[Brooklyn, New York]], the neighbourhood of [[Gravesend, Brooklyn|Gravesend]] is said by some to have been named for 's-Gravenzande,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://forgotten-ny.com/2000/05/gravesend-brooklyn/|title=Gravesend, Brooklyn – Forgotten New York|date=22 May 2000|access-date=4 May 2016|archive-date=2 May 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160502080607/http://forgotten-ny.com/2000/05/gravesend-brooklyn/|url-status=live}}</ref> though its founding by the English religious dissenter [[Deborah Moody|Lady Deborah Moody]] in 1645 suggests that it may be named after Gravesend, England. Lady Deborah was originally from London and is credited with being the first woman to found a settlement in the New World.

The Domesday spelling is its earliest known historical record;<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/283 |title=History of Gravesend, in Gravesham and Kent &#124; Map and description |website=Visionofbritain.org.uk |access-date=27 February 2016 |archive-date=4 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304035842/http://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/283 |url-status=live }}</ref> all other spellings – in the later (c. 1100) Domesday ''Monachorum'' and in ''Textus Roffensis'' the town is ''Gravesend'' and ''Gravesende'', respectively. The variation ''Graveshend'' can be seen in a court record of 1422, where [[Langford, Bedfordshire|Edmund de Langeford]] was [[parson]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no647/bCP40no647dorses/IMG_0499.htm |title=AALT Page |website=Aalt.law.uh.edu |access-date=27 February 2016 |archive-date=3 March 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303223547/http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT1/H6/CP40no647/bCP40no647dorses/IMG_0499.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> and attributed to where the graves ended after the [[Black Death]]. The municipal title Gravesham was formally adopted in 1974 as the name for the new [[municipality|borough]].<ref name=Hiscock>{{cite book|first = Robert H|last = Hiscock|year = 1976|title = 'A History of Gravesend|publisher = Phillimore & Co Ltd|location = London}}</ref>