As part of our Kent voyage of discovery we visited Chatham Historic Dockyard. We started out by travelling via train to Chatham, then walking to the museum – a walk which took about 40 minutes. By then we were ready for a sit down before exploring the Dockyard. So we met up with our old friends in the cafe. We had a good catch up while enjoying some delicious food. There was also a small gift shop in that building to browse for souvenirs.
Then we embarked upon our discovery tour learning about how the Royal Navy dominated the oceans in the Age of Sail from the 18th century. There were digital exhibitions and galleries full of artefacts. We were also able to go on board the historic warships. These were great, especially for the younger members of our party, but I declined to tackle the steepest iron ladders leading to the ship’s hull!
While walking around I saw a “nurse” conducting a Call the Midwife Tour – this is one of the locations where the TV series was filmed (Being a retired nurse, this is one of my favourite programmes) When I stopped to photograph the scene the costumed tour guide admonished me in a very matron-like manner! The Dockyard has also been used as a setting during the filming of Bridgerton.
Another interesting exhibition was all about the history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. It has the largest collection of historic lifeboats with interactive displays and archive films ( This was especially interesting for me because our local history group is currently collating the archive of the New Brighton RNLI)
But the most fascinating building at Chatham is the Ropery. The Master Ropemakers have been ropemaking on the site for more than 400 years and still going strong today. From its heritage of providing ropes for the Royal Navy the Ropery now has new markets producing handmade giftware and bespoke items. The sheer scale of the long ropewalk and witnessing ropemaking in action was really quite awe-inspiring.
With over 80 acres of historic buildings and open spaces there is really so much to see. At the end of our tour we exited the site by the other entrance in Main Gate Road to catch a bus to Chatham railway station.
