Gillingham (/ˈɡɪlɪŋəm/ ⓘ GHIL-ing-əm) is a town and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England.

[citation needed] In the Domesday Book in 1086 it is recorded as Gelingeham,[4] and later spellings include Gellingeham in 1130, Gyllingeham in 1152 and Gilingeham in 1209.

[citation needed] The name derives from a personal name plus the Old English inga and hām, and means a homestead of the family or followers of a man called Gylla.

Gillingham became a local farming centre, gained the first grammar school in Dorset in 1516 and a silk mill in 1769.

In the 1820s, the artist John Constable stayed at Gillingham vicarage and, being impressed by the beauty of the countryside, executed several local sketches and paintings.

[6] In the 1850s, the arrival of the railway to the town brought prosperity and new industries including brickmaking, cheese production, printing, soap manufacture and at the end of the 19th century one of the first petrol engine plants in the country.

In the Second World War Gillingham's position on the railway from London to Exeter was key to its rapid growth.

In 1940 and 1941 there was large-scale evacuation of London and other industrial cities to rural towns, particularly in the north, southwest and Wales.

They form part of the constituency of North Dorset, which is currently represented in the UK parliament by the Conservative Simon Hoare.

[9] After 2019 structural changes to local government in England, the Gillingham ward ahs elected three councillors to Dorset Council.