Wigmore is a suburb/village in the southeast of the Medway conurbation in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

. It is broadly bounded by the

A278 road The A278 (Hoath Way) is a road running north–south in north Kent, England. The whole length of the road is dual carriageway, within Medway Council but is a non-primary route. History The A278 was formerly used as the number for the Felbrid ...

to the west, Rainham to the north and the

M2 motorway This is a list of roads designated M2: Europe * M2 motorway (Great Britain), a motorway in England * M2 expressway (Hungary), a motorway in Hungary * N2 road (Ireland)#M2 motorway, a motorway in the Republic of Ireland * M-2 highway (Monteneg ...

to the south.

History

The placename is attested in 1275 as ''Wydemere'', from an

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th c ...

''*wīd-mere'' "broad pool". A sparsely-populated hamlet and farming area until the 20th Century, Wigmore was briefly the site of a smallpox isolation hospital (Alexandra Hospital) from 1902, and began to be developed as a village from 1906 when the 365-acre Wigmore agricultural estate was partitioned and sold as plots, initially as smallholdings (hence the local “Smallholders Club”) and rural shanties for Medway families.

Amenities

St Matthew's Church was founded in 1925 and was replaced in the 1960s by architects Brett, Boyd and Bosanquet. A

prefab Prefabrication is the practice of assembling components of a structure in a factory or other manufacturing site, and transporting complete assemblies or sub-assemblies to the construction site where the structure is to be located. The term is u ...

Evangelical church was opened later. Now a fully suburbanised village within south Gillingham, the area has a community primary school, medical centre, and local football team, Wigmore Youth F.C.

Transport

Arriva bus 132 runs between Wigmore, Rainham and Chatham.

References in popular culture

Rock bands associated with the locality-championing

Medway scene The Medway scene consists of the bands and related cultural activities of the Medway Towns, north Kent, England. Main towns involved (from West to East) are Strood, Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham, and Rainham. The Medway scene is typically dat ...

have referenced Wigmore; The Buff Medways in the song "Medway Wheelers" (2005) and the Len Price 3 with "Wigmore Swingers" (2014).

References

Medway {{Kent-geo-stub