Sittingbourne was suggested by pjjjrteam who said 'I found my Cousin in Kent. He lives with his family in Sittingbourne'.
Sittingbourne is an industrial town about eight miles (12.9 km) east of Gillingham in England, beside the Roman Watling Street off a creek in the Swale, a channel separating the Isle of Sheppey from mainland Kent.
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. ”
The Kent Hundred Rolls of 1274-5, 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."
There is evidence of settlement in the area before 2000BC, with farming and trading based Celtic tribes living inland to avoid attack, yet close enough to access the sea at Milton Creek. In 43AD, the Romans invaded Kent, and to make access quicker between London and Dover, built Watling Street, which passed straight through Sittingbourne. As a point where sea access met road access, Milton Regis as a port became the Roman Administrative Centre for the area with some 20 villas so far discovered, but Sittingbourne remained a minor hamlet during their 400 year reign. Most modern Roman history of this area of Kent was found thanks to the efforts of 19th century brick makers who used topsoil to make bricks, and uncovered the finds; and preserved thanks to the efforts of banker George Payne, who preserved or bought materials and published his works in 1893 in Collectanca Cantiana.
By the time of the Norman invasion in 1066, Sittingbourne was not recorded as part of the Domesday book in 1086, merely a note attached to Milton with a population of 309. However, after the murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket in 1170, pilgrims began to make the journey to Canterbury Cathedral and Sittingbourne became a useful hostelry for many travellers. Sittingbourne is mentioned as a stopping point in The Canterbury Tales
After the railway came in 1858, Sittingbourne became less a market trading and hostelry stop-off, and more a 19th-century centre of production to fuel the expansion of London, by producing bricks and paper from its clay substrata.