Gravesend was granted, allowing the men of the town to operate boats between London and the town; these became known as the "Long Ferry". It became the preferred form of passage, because of the perils of road travel (see below). On Gravesend's river front are the remains of a Tudor fort built by command of King Henry VIII in 1543. On 21 March 1617, John Rolfe and Rebecca (aka Princess Pocahontas) with their two-year-old son, Thomas, boarded a ship in London bound for the Commonwealth of Virginia; the ship had only sailed as far as Gravesend before Rebecca fell fatally ill,
Transport in Kent road was part of Watling Street. These routes are now approximately followed by the A2, B2068, A257, and the A28. When the roads were turnpiked in the 18th century, they were used to carry foodstuffs from Kent to London, and the roads radiated from there. The A2 ran from London to Dartford (A207), Gravesend, Rochester, Canterbury and Dover. The A20 ran to Eltham, Wrotham, Maidstone, Charing, Ashford, Hythe, Folkestone and Dover. The A21 ran to Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, and Tunbridge Wells. With the increased traffic on these roads, the main towns were bypassed; and then in the 1960s two motorways were