The area around Gravesend is greener and wetter than its reputation suggests. A park or open space is a couple of minutes from most front doors. The Thames is a short walk from much of the town. The countryside starts at the town's edge. The town has a river, a hill and marshes on either side, and the people who sneer at it have mostly only seen it from a train.
The average Gravesend home is about 140 metres from the nearest public green space, with about 29 green spaces within a kilometre. Those range from the slopes of Windmill Hill to the recreation grounds on the post-war estates, so few people are more than a couple of streets from grass.
Open water is about 850 metres from the average home, with about 20 bits of it within a kilometre, from the Thames itself to the ponds and the old canal basin. The rowing club on the river was founded in 1878, and rowing races have been held off Gravesend since at least 1698. Racing on that river is the oldest thing in Gravesend that still happens every year.
The National Cycle Network is about 780 metres from the average home, and about 35% of homes are close to it. There is no ancient woodland inside the town. The Saxon Shore Way and the Wealdway both set off from the Town Pier, so the long walks start in the town centre.
On the rated-premises register, Gravesend has 655 shops, 58 pubs and 51 restaurants. The pubs and restaurants are close to level, which is about right for a town where the river front and the high street were built for a drink first and dinner later.
Gravesham's fine-particle level was about 8 micrograms per cubic metre in 2024, a figure for the borough as a whole.
The town is easiest to understand from the water. Royal Terrace Pier and the Town Pier still run along the front, the Grade II* Milton Chantry stands in Fort Gardens, and Windmill Hill rises behind the old town. To the east, Shorne and Chalk give way to farmland and the marshes. To the south, Cobham has its own village feel. Southfleet is a few miles off to the south-west. Gravesend has more than one neighbourhood, and most of them can see the countryside.
Private gardens add about 67,000 square metres of outdoor space per 1,000 residents across Gravesend. Most of that comes from the post-war semis and terraces with proper back gardens. The flats near the river front have very little of it.
The valuation list counts 1,327 rateable premises in Gravesend, and shops are the largest single category at 529, ahead of 198 offices. Those are premises on a tax list, and some will be empty or used for something else, but the list confirms that the town centre is still a retail centre first.
Of 380 food businesses rated for hygiene, about 87% hold the top score of five, and about 1% sit at the bottom. That makes eating out in Gravesend a fairly safe bet as far as the kitchens go.
No area of outstanding natural beauty, site of special scientific interest or ancient woodland overlaps the town itself. The protected land lies just past the boundary, where the Shorne Marshes reach down to the estuary as a site of special scientific interest. Gravesend is built right up to the edge of it.
The area around Gravesend is one of the best things about living there: grass close to almost every home, the river within a walk and open countryside on the edge of town. Visitors who only know the station tend to miss most of it.