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Chatham Historic DockyardWest London Region   South Central Area

Chatham Historic Dockyard, Sunday 18th July 2004
Text and pictures by Julian Knight - click on thumbnails for larger photos.

Lined up in front of HMS Gannet    MX-5s and menacing skies    A great turn-out, 40 cars    Destroyer, tall ship, helicopter and cars

On a wet but warm day, 40 cars descended on the Medway towns to visit Chatham's Historic Dockyard. Fortunately there is plenty to see and do around the dockyard out of the rain, so Karen and I started our day with a "private tour" inside the submarine HMS Ocelot - just us and the guide! It was a fascinating tour starting off in the torpedo/aft escape room, moving through the officers rooms, control room and finally the engine room. The engines were two huge 16 cylinder supercharged diesels producing a massive 3680hp!.

Outside HMS Ocelot    Ocelot's torpedo room/escape chamber    The huge submarine is steered by this tiny wheel!    3680hp of diesel power..grrrr!

After the Ocelot was our pre-booked tour of the ropery, covering the whole process from shipment of the raw material through to the finished rope. We tried our hand at making a small length of rope using a manual rope-making machine and followed this by seeing the commercial process in one of Europe's longest commercial buildings at a length of 1,135ft (346m).

Making rope, by hand      Making yarn, the commercial way      One of Europe's longest commercial buildings

Next we explored the newly-restored HMS Gannet, followed by a guided tour of the destroyer HMS Cavalier. The Gannet was in an exceptionally poor state when it arrived in Chatham and with the support of several million pounds of lottery money it has been restored back to a superb ship. HMS Cavalier is one of only two surviving British destroyers and is also in excellent condition. Resulting from its uniqueness as a surviving destroyer, HMS Cavalier (along with HMS Belfast) is privileged to fly the Ensign - a right normally reserved for the 'serving' HM fleet.

HMS Gannet from land    HMS Gannet from the river    The Gannet!    The destroyer, HMS Cavalier

Finally, and in our opinion the best way to finish a day at the dockyard, a trip on the River Medway on the steam paddleship the Kingswear Castle. This was an hour and a half trip taking in Upnor Castle, St Mary's Island, The Strand, two forts and some historic boats and ships. It was a fascinating and thoroughly recommendable experience.

The paddle steamer, Kingswear Castle    Upnor Castle    Peace on the River Medway

Thanks to Keith Visser and everyone else for organising such a great day out, it was good to see so many new faces and cars in 'our neck of the woods'!


You can see more photos taken on the day by clicking on these links:

Keith's Photo Album     Phil's Photo Album     Tim and Di's Photo Album