" from Ireland's History of Kent, Vol. 4, 1831. Facing p. 349. Drawn by G. Sheppard, engraved by R. Roffe.
Gillingham Water Chatham's establishment as a naval dockyard was precipitated by the use of the Medway as a safe
anchorage by the ships of what became (under
King Henry VIII) England's permanent
Royal Navy. In 1550, a decree was issued to the
Lord High Admiral that: all the Kinges shippes should be harborowed in
Jillyngham Water – saving only those that be at
Portsmouth Even prior to this, there is evidence of certain shore facilities being established in the vicinity for the benefit of the King's ships at anchor: there are isolated references from as early as 1509 to the hiring of a
storehouse nearby and from 1547 this becomes a fixed item in the Treasurer's annual accounts. (At around the same time a
victualling store was also established, in nearby
Rochester, to provide the ships and their crews with food.) The storehouse would have furnished ships with such necessary consumables as rope, pulleys, sailcloth and timber.
Careening took place on the river, according to a Privy Council instruction of 1550; for more specialised repairs and maintenance, however, ships would have had to travel to one of the purpose-built
royal dockyards (the nearest being those on the
Thames:
Deptford and
Woolwich).
The early dockyard 1567 is generally seen as the date of Chatham's establishment as a Royal Naval Dockyard. In the years that followed the ground was prepared, accommodation was secured and in 1570 a mast pond was installed. The following year a
forge was built for anchor-making. At around the same time a large house was leased (the Hill House) for administrative purposes including meetings of the
Council of Marine Causes. (Hill House would serve as the dockyard's Pay Office for the next 180 years; the
Royal Marine Barracks were later built on its site). The renowned Tudor shipwright
Mathew Baker was appointed to Chatham in 1572 (though he was primarily based at Deptford). Under his supervision the site was developed to include
sawpits,
workshops, storehouses and a
wharf with a
treadmill crane (completed in 1580). Most significantly, Chatham's first
dry dock was opened in 1581 (for repairing naval
galleys). The first ship to be built at the dockyard, a 10-gun
pinnace named HMS
Merlin (or
Merlyon), was launched in 1579. The dockyard received its first royal visit, from
Elizabeth I, in 1573; later, in 1606,
James I used Chatham dockyard for a meeting with
Christian IV of Denmark.
Relocation in the background. In the early 17th century the government resolved to invest in a new specialised facility for refitting and repairing warships. By 1611 Chatham had been chosen as its location (in preference to Deptford, which at the time was the nation's principal naval shipbuilding yard; this led to speculation that Deptford was going to be sold off). The decision established Chatham as the country's premier naval industrial complex; nevertheless, concerns were already being raised over its river being prone to silting. The decision required the dockyard to move from its original location, which was too constricted, to a new (adjacent) site to the north. (The old site was in due course transferred to the
Ordnance Board, who established the
gun wharf there.) By 1619, the new dockyard consisted of a new dry dock and wharf with storehouses, all enclosed within a brick perimeter wall. The growing importance of the dockyard was illustrated with the addition soon afterwards of a mast pond, and the granting of additional land on which a second (double) dry dock was constructed, along with a
sail loft, a
ropery and residences for the dockyard officers: all of which were completed by 1624.
Sheerness , June 1667'' by
Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, painted . The captured ship is right of centre. One of the disadvantages of Chatham (and also of the Thames-side yards) was their relative inaccessibility for ships at sea (including those anchored in
The Nore). Therefore, rather than risk being constrained by wind, tide and
draught on a journey upriver, ships would seek as often as possible to do running repairs and maintenance while at anchor, and would only travel to the dockyard when necessary. Thus deliveries of victuals, ordnance and other supplies were made by small boats, sailing regularly between Chatham and The Nore. Seeking to alleviate this less-than-satisfactory situation, the
Navy Board explored options for developing a shore facility with direct access from the open water of the
Thames Estuary. The escalating
Anglo-Dutch wars forced their hand, however: several temporary buildings were hastily erected in
Sheerness, at the mouth of the Medway, to enable ships to re-arm, re-victual and (if necessary) be repaired as quickly as possible. In 1665, the Navy Board approved Sheerness as a site for a new dockyard, and building work began; but in 1667 the still-incomplete
Sheerness Dockyard was captured by the
Dutch Navy and used as the base for an
attack on the English fleet at anchor in the Medway itself. Sheerness remained operational as a royal dockyard until 1959, but it was never considered a major shore establishment and in several respects it operated as a subsidiary yard to Chatham. By this time the establishment, including the gun wharf, stretched in length, and included an area of in excess of . Alongside the four dry docks it now had a total of six shipbuilding slips (equalling Deptford and outnumbering the other yards in this regard), albeit three of the six were under in length and suitable only for building smaller warships. Building works at Chatham did not compare with the substantial expansions underway at Portsmouth and Plymouth at this time; but the southern part of the yard was significantly redeveloped, with construction of two new storehouses on Anchor Wharf and a major reconfiguration of the ropery. and (a ), launched in 1824 and now preserved afloat at
Dundee).
Mechanisation Following the appointment of
Robert Seppings as Master Shipwright in 1804, iron began to be introduced into the structure of ships being built at Chatham; the following year work began on a new, much larger
smithery, commissioned by
Samuel Bentham, designed by
Edward Holl and fitted out by
John Rennie. Among other things, the use of iron in ship construction enabled larger vessels to be built, and between 1836 and 1851 Chatham gained five new covered slipways, much larger in scale than the ones they replaced. (The covering of Chatham's slipways and dry docks, to protect the woodwork of ships as they were built or repaired, had begun with No.2 Slip and No.1 Dock in 1817). Another hint of changes to come was seen in the launch of
HMS Aetna, the first
armour-plated vessel to be built at Chatham, in 1856. All these developments were to come together with the construction of
HMS Achilles, in a newly expanded No.2 Dock, between 1860 and 1864: the first true iron-hulled battleship to be launched in a royal dockyard. To meet the new demands of building in iron, metal mills were built alongside the smithery in 1845, containing
rolling machinery and
furnaces for reprocessing iron. For the time being, however,
marine steam engines were not manufactured on site but were ordered from
Thames-based private contractors (along with other associated equipment). In 1860 the dockyard's policing was also transferred to the new
No.4 Division of the Metropolitan Police, which remained in that role until 1932.
Expansion in No 8 Dock, with No 1 Boiler Shop in the background, . A significant disadvantage for Chatham was that
fitting out had always taken place on the river. When
Achilles, for example, had been completed and floated out of dry dock, she spent almost a year moored in Gillingham Reach, where not only her engines, boilers, funnels and a propeller were fitted, but also masts, sails, rigging, guns, coal, food, ammunition and furnishings were either loaded or installed. Work on the other docks and basins followed, with No.3 Basin finally being completed in 1883. Two years later the project was largely complete, with facilities provided alongside for gun mounting and mast rigging, as well as a
victualling depot and a
coaling area. In 1897 a
naval barracks was built on the site of the prison to provide crew accommodation for ships anchored in
The Nore; for the next sixty years it served as the headquarters of Nore Command, whose
Commander-in-Chief was accommodated in the adjacent Admiralty House. (The older slipways, by contrast, were proving much too small and they were mostly filled in around this time, their covered areas being put to alternative uses.) The first battleship to be built on the new No.8 Slip was
HMS Africa, launched in 1905; however it also proved to be the last, as it was announced (controversially) that Chatham Dockyard would be unable to accommodate
Dreadnoughts. Proposals were made for a fourth Basin of , together with additional large docks of up to , to cover the remaining land on St Mary's Island; but these were soon superseded by plans to build an entirely new dockyard at
Rosyth. Nevertheless,
Light cruisers and other smaller vessels continued to be built at Chatham during the first half of the 20th century. Also with the 20th century came the submarine. The first submarine to be built at a royal dockyard was , launched from the covered No.7 Slip in 1908 and then fitted out in No.2 Dock; five more of the same
class followed,
C18,
C19,
C20,
C33 and
C34. During
World War I, twelve submarines were built here, but when hostilities ceased, uncompleted boats were scrapped and five years passed before a further ship was launched. In the interwar years, eight
S-class submarines as well as X1 were built at Chatham but this was a period of decline. Production ramped up during
World War II with HMS's
Umpire,
Una,
Splendid,
Sportsman,
Shalimar,
Tradewind,
Trenchant,
Turpin,
Thermopylae and
Acheron being constructed. (In the event, the barracks were reprieved and repurposed rather than being closed at this stage.) The final boats constructed in Chatham were s – was the last vessel built for the
Royal Navy, and the final vessel was built for the
Royal Canadian Navy and launched on 17 September 1966.
Closure The closure of Chatham Dockyard (along with the adjacent Naval Barracks) was announced in Parliament in June 1981 and scheduled to take place in 1984.
Redundancy notices were served, but then abruptly withdrawn following the
1982 invasion of the Falkland Islands; the dockyard was heavily involved in preparing ships for the South Atlantic, and in repairing damaged vessels on their return. Nonetheless, the dockyard closed, as planned, on 31 March 1984.
Regeneration At the time of its closure the dockyard covered . Thereafter this was divided into three sections: , the 18th century core of the site, was transferred to a charity called the
Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. The Georgian site is now a visitor attraction under the care of the Trust:
Chatham Historic Dockyard. The Trust is preparing an application for the dockyard and its defences to become a
World Heritage Site. housing estate The easternmost basin (Basin No.3) was handed over to the
Medway Ports authority and is now a commercial port (Chatham Docks). It includes Papersafe UK and Nordic Recycling Ltd. In 2013
Peel Ports, which owns and runs Chatham Docks, announced that it was set to convert a portion of the commercial port into a mixed-use development (incorporating offices, an education facility, apartments, town houses and a food store (
Asda), as well as landscaped public areas). The development is called "Chatham Waters". In 2019 Peel announced that Chatham Docks would close in 2025 with the loss of 800 jobs. The remaining were transferred to the government's urban regeneration agency (later
English Partnerships). Under its remit, the westernmost (No.1) Basin was turned into a
marina, part of the former factory area to the south was transformed into an entertainment and retail complex ('Chatham Maritime') and the former Barracks (HMS
Pembroke) became
Universities at Medway.
St Mary's Island, a , largely undeveloped area to the north of the three basins, was transformed into a residential community for some 1,500 homes. It has several themed areas with traditional maritime buildings, a fishing (though in looks only) village with its multi-coloured houses and a modern energy-efficient concept. Many homes have views of the River Medway. A primary school (St. Mary's C of E) and a
medical centre provide facilities for the residents and there are attractive walks around the Island.
Filming Chatham Dockyard has become a popular location for filming, due to its varied and interesting areas such as the cobbled streets, church and over 100 buildings dating from the Georgian and Victorian periods. Productions that have chosen to film at Chatham Dockyard include:
Les Misérables,
Call the Midwife,
Mr Selfridge,
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,
Oliver Twist,
The World Is Not Enough and
Grantchester. ==Detailed descriptions==