Previously a manor/estate called Lydesinge partially in the parishes of Chatham[3] and Gillingham,[4] including part of the area that is now Hempstead, the district was the site of a chapel of ease, St. Mary Magdalene's, from the 12th Century. The chapel was demolished in the 1880s.[5]
Lidsing was formerly a ville in Medway district,[6] from 1866 Lidsing was a civil parish in its own right, on 1 October 1913 the parish was abolished and merged with Gillingham.[7]