. . a town on the River Medway in the English county of Kent
Tonbridge’s history goes back a long way. People in the Iron Age used the river crossing here, as the Romans must have done later. A Saxon settlement may have grown up beside the river, before the Normans came and built the motte-and-bailey castle. Its massive gatehouse is now one of the finest surviving in the country.
Mediæval Tonbridge was a market town of a few hundred people. Today the population exceeds 30,000, but the town’s historic core remains. Tonbridge still has more than 150 listed buildings.
The castle and five branches of the Medway appeared on Tonbridge’s coat of arms, pre-1974. See details of the arms. To find out more about the of our town, goto Tonbridge – a brief history or to the the people and places
For those who want to go deeper websites with more Tonbridge History should help to get you started.
P.S. Today Tonbridge is spelt with an ‘o’ but pronounced (as it was once spelt) with a ‘u’: ‘Tunbridge’ …more at Tonbridge or Tunbridge.