The population of Gillingham doubled in the last quarter of the 19th century, creating a vital need for recreational space. An area of pasture was purchased by the Council in 1903 from Brasenose College, Oxford. The park was designed by J Redfern, the council's surveyor, and was opened in 1906.
The site was left as public open space and part was designed as an ornamental garden. Trees planted at that time give the park its character today, despite severe losses in the 1987 storm. Flowering cherries, holly, magnolia, almond and catalpa have been added, with borders of shrubs, bulbs and seasonal planting providing colour. The mock-Tudor lodge of 1904 is in Council use. The park features a bandstand, large open grassed areas and is surrounded by a circular walk.

In 2015, the Kent Gardens Trust performed a review of historical information relating to Gillingham Park, Gillingham.

Taken from the review:
"STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Gillingham Park is an example of an intact, surviving Edwardian park layout, the design and construction typically undertaken by the Borough Engineer in a style promoted by the influential C19 writer and horticulturalist, JC Loudon and typical of the period. The extensive photographic record of former structures and plantings has evidential value. Communal value stems from its long period of use as a public park and an attractive landscape, and specifically as a site of remembrance of an important historical event, that of the 15 people including firemen and children killed in the 1929 fete tragedy. "

Gillingham Park existed as pastureland until 1901 when the land was purchesed by Gillingham Borough Council. Designed by Mr J Redfern, the Borough Council Surveyor, the park featured a circular walk surrounding a large grass field for recreation puroses. The layout also featured a nursery for the parks plants and a two story band stand - features associated with a typical early edwardian publing park. The park was formally opened by the Mayor of Gillingham in a grand ceromony on July 12th 1906. in 1929 there was a tragic incident where 15 people, including children and firemen, burned to death in a wooden tower when a firelighting display went horribly wrong during the summer fete. This event is commemorated by a memorial at the site of the tragedy.

"The park deteriorated sadly during and after WWII. The grand Edwardian-style bedding which had persisted until the war was discontinued. The bandstand became derelict and was removed in 1951. The grand main gates were removed to Fort Amherst in 1983 and the railings and other gates were vandalised and partially demolished. Municipal buildings were erected adjacent to the southern boundary in 1936 (MALSC LDA MMP photograph of laying of foundation stone) and a public toilet block constructed at the main Canterbury Street entrance. In October 1987, 160 mature trees were blown down in the hurricane. In 2013 an ambitious ‘5 year Management and Maintenance Plan 2014 – 2018’ (MMP) was commissioned by Medway Council from LDA Design but to date (2014) little work has taken place to implement it.

… Gillingham Park lies approximately 1.3 km south of Gillingham railway station and 300m north-east from the junction of the A2 (Rainham Road) and Canterbury Street. It occupies an area of 6.47 hectares (16 acres). Its original rhomboid form has been slightly altered by the incursion of later buildings on the north-west and southern boundaries

…The topography of the park is largely flat. It is situated at the highest point in the Medway towns, approximately 250m above the level of the river Medway. When it was first constructed there were extensive views to the north east over the river, which was one of the features influencing the choice of this site for a public park. However, the view is now (2014) almost entirely blocked by housing and trees. Surrounding the park, particularly in Park Avenue and Oxford Road, are attractive houses from the first half of the C20.

...PARK: The park can be divided into three distinct areas:
The south-west area, immediately inside the main entrance, comprises formal gardens either side of a central, south-west/ north-east axial path, subsidiary paths and flower beds now (2014) much degraded and simplified from their original Edwardian design. Planting now includes herbaceous beds and a winter garden, laid out either side of the main axial path and covered by a simple iron-framed pergola. All the Edwardian structures in this formal area, as shown on a variety of contemporary photographs (MALSC Couchman Collection, reproduced in LDA MMP) including a 2 storey bandstand (DE402/21/32(L) demolished in the 1950s, and pergolas, a dove cote/aviary and formal rockery, all similarly recorded in photographs, have since disappeared.
The central, axial path leads in a north-easterly direction from this formal area and onto the most extensive area which comprises a central open grassed space occupying approximately two thirds of the park’s total area. This circular grassed area, ringed by a perimeter path and mixed mature deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs, survives intact from its original layout. A flag pole surrounded by cannons was a notable feature installed in the south west corner of this green sometime after WWI but removed at the start of the second. In the north-west corner between the path and the park boundary the Parklands Resource Centre occupies the site of the original park nursery, its cold frames and lights shown in a contemporary photograph (MALSC, reproduced in LDA MMP). To the east of the green is an extensive children’s playground, installed some time before 1971. Just south of this is a small memorial to the firefighting display disaster of 1929.
A secondary path off the main perimeter path leads into an oval loop around, the south-eastern corner which is largely given over to trees and shrubs. The paths are now (2014) tarmac, the original gravel surfaces paths having been covered with several layers of tarmac." (1).

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2015, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Medway: Gillingham Park, Gillingham (Unpublished document). SKE31410.