Top Qs
Timeline
Chat
Perspective

Chatham Historic Dockyard

UK maritime museum From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chatham Historic Dockyardmap
Remove ads

The Historic Dockyard Chatham is a maritime museum on part of the site of the former royal/naval dockyard at Chatham in Kent, South East England.

Thumb
Dockyard Plan of 1774, reproduced on an information panel adjacent to the former South Mast Pond (shown highlighted in red).

Chatham Dockyard covered 400 acres (1.6 km2) and was one of the Royal Navy's main facilities for several hundred years until it was closed in 1984. After closure the dockyard was divided into three sections. The easternmost basin was handed over to Medway Ports and is now a commercial port, although the landowner plans to close it in 2025.[1] Another slice was converted into a mixed commercial, residential and leisure development. 80 acres (324,000 m2), comprising the 18th-century core of the site, was transferred to a charity called the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and is now open as a visitor attraction. It claims to be the world's most complete dockyard of the age of sail.[2]

Remove ads

Exhibits and displays

Summarize
Perspective
Thumb
HMS Gannet.
Thumb
HMS Ocelot on display, with an anti-aircraft gun to the right as part of a display on the Dockyard and the V1 rocket.
Thumb
Model of HMS Victory, on display in the Museum of the Royal Dockyard.
Thumb
No.1 Smithery, Chatham Historic Dockyard

The attraction has seven main elements:

Thumb
The entrance to 'Command of the Oceans', which was entered into the 2017 Stirling Prize
  • A new project for 2014 was Command of the Oceans. This was possible due to £4.53m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Also the project got a £3m contribution from the Homes and Communities Agency. A new entrance was built on the north side of the visitor attraction, and a discovery centre linking the former naval base with other significant heritage sites including Fort Amherst, the Great Lines Heritage Park (between Gillingham and Chatham) and Upnor Castle. This all became possible after the remains of the Namur warship was discovered under the floor of the Wheelwrights' Shop in 1995.[6] In 2017, the Command of the Oceans display was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize for excellence in architecture.[7]

Workers at the dockyard performed eight years of restoration work on the MV Havengore, the ceremonial vessel that carried the body of Winston Churchill during his state funeral. In addition the dockyard acted as custodian of artefacts, masts and rigging from the Cutty Sark and the Medway Queen, while their hulls were being restored elsewhere.

Thumb
The interior of the ropery
  • Records of the ships built at Chatham go back to 1646.[8]
  • Chatham Dockyard had one of the best technical schools in England, it housed the first Dockyard School followed by Devonport and Portsmouth. It accepted students from overseas dockyards such as Gibraltar and Malta.
  • Some of the hundreds of warships built at the Chatham Royal Dockyard may still be seen. These preserved ships include:
    • HMS Victory (100-gun first rate, i.e. ship of the line launched 1765, preserved in dry dock at Portsmouth, England, UK; Nelson's flagship at Trafalgar)
    • HMS Unicorn (54-gun fifth rate – launched 1824, preserved afloat at Dundee, Scotland, UK)
    • HMS Ocelot (S17) ("O" class submarine – launched 5 May 1962, preserved in dry dock at Chatham).
Remove ads

Dockyard railway

The site is also home to a dockyard railway that has a diverse collection of locomotives and rolling stock, some of which can be seen in operation throughout the year.

Steam Locomotives

More information Builder, Wheel arrangement ...

Diesel Locomotives

More information Builder, Wheel arrangement ...
Remove ads

Use in TV and other media

The Historic Dockyard Chatham spans 80 acres, has over 100 buildings and structures dating from the Georgian and Victorian periods to the present day, thus making it an attractive location for period filming over the years.

Some of the shows/films to have used the facilities and locations at Chatham Dockyard are:[9]

In 2020, some scenes for Belgravia (TV series) were filmed at the dockyard.[10]

References

Loading related searches...

Wikiwand - on

Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.

Remove ads