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,
Gravesend West railway station Dover Railway (LCDR), the station provided the third rail route to Gravesend after the South Eastern Railway's North Kent Line which had reached the town in 1849 and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway's ferry service from its Tilbury station on the opposite bank of the Thames which had begun in 1854. The official opening of the station to public traffic on Monday 10 May 1886 was marked by the protest of local landowner Lord Darnley who barricaded Stuart Road in protest against the LCDR's right to use his roads in Gravesend. The barriers were removed half-an-hour before the official