15 Facts About Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent.

One of the disadvantages of Chatham Dockyard was their relative inaccessibility for ships at sea.

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 Chatham 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.

The first steam-powered ship to be laid down at Chatham was HMS Phoenix, one of four paddle steamers built concurrently across the royal dockyards in the early 1830s, each designed by a different leading shipwright.

HMS Bee, launched at Chatham Dockyard in 1842, was an experimental vessel fitted with both paddles and a propeller, each of which could be driven independently from the same engine for comparison.

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Significant disadvantage for Chatham Dockyard was that fitting out had always taken place on the river.

Closure of Chatham Dockyard was announced in Parliament in June 1981 and scheduled to take place in 1984.

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 Miserables, Call the Midwife, Mr Selfridge, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Oliver Twist, The World Is Not Enough and Grantchester.

Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard held a seat and a vote on the Navy Board in London.

Chatham Dockyard's yard was split in two, the area south of the Storekeeper's House becoming an Army Ordnance Store, and the rest a Navy Ordnance Store.

The oldest surviving barracks in the Chatham Dockyard area is in Upnor; dating from 1718, it housed the detachment of 64 men responsible for guarding the gunpowder store in Upnor Castle.

Accommodating some 1,800 men, Chatham Dockyard was one of the first large-scale Army barracks in England.

In 1928 Chatham Dockyard Barracks was taken over by the Royal Engineers and renamed Kitchener Barracks.

Royal Marine Barracks, Chatham were established in 1779, on a site nestled between the Gun Wharf to the west, the Dockyard to the north, and Infantry Barracks to the east.