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'Chatham' is a large town that developed around an important naval dockyard on the east bank of the River Medway to the southeast of London in Kent, England. Together with Gillingham and Rochester it is today part of the Medway Towns conurbation.

Contents

History

Transport

Roads

Railways

River Medway

Sports

Notable people

See also

References

External links

History

Chatham Dockyard was established by Elizabeth I of England in 1568 and the small village of Chatham grew. At one point thousands of men were employed at the dockyard, and many hundreds of ships and submarines were launched there including ''HMS Victory'' which was built there in the 1760s. The dockyard was shut as an operational site 1984 by the Thatcher government; a large part of it became a historic site (operated by Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust) and the rest has been developed for housing, industrial sites and as a commercial marina.
Chatham is also the site of many of the fortifications built to protect the dockyard from invasion. The Great Lines (abbreviated from "great lines of defence") were built across the neck of the peninsula formed by the bend in the river. By 1758 this stretched for more than a mile from Fort Amherst (today a heritage site) to Gillingham Reach. Later, forts were built above the town, among them Fort Luton (also a heritage site), Fort Pitt (later used as a hospital by Florence Nightingale; the site is now a girls' grammar school) and Fort Horsted. Many still exist; some have been converted into housing; others have been demolished.
The town was also the location for several military barracks, most of which have now shut. Although the postal address of Brompton Barracks (the headquarters of the Royal Engineers) indicates Chatham as its location, Brompton was an entirely separate village within Gillingham parish.
Chatham was almost certainly the home of the first Baptist chapel in north Kent. The first Baptist place of worship in the town was founded in 1644, meeting in private houses and in barns. The first known pastor was Edward Morecock who settled there in the 1660s. During Cromwell's time Morecock had been a sea-captain and had been injured in battle. He knew the River Medway as few others, and it was this knowledge that preserved him from persecution in the reign of King Charles II.
Chatham became a market town in its own right in the 19th century, and a municipal borough in 1890. By 1831 its population had reached more than 16,000. By 1961 it had reached 48,800.
It is claimed by some, that Chatham is the birthplace of "chav" subculture. This was first evident from a website about "Chatham girls" (immortalised in a song by Chris Broderick), which received a huge amount of media interest. The website was so popular it was pulled by Geocities for exceeding its bandwidth.^[1]
On a cultural level Chatham also gave birth to several movements in literature, art and music. In the late 1970s and early 1980s the Medway Delta Sound emerged. Several of these bands gained international recognition e.g. The Milkshakes, The Prisoners (see also James Taylor Quartet), The Dagger Men, The Dentists, Chris Broderick and The Singing Loins. In recent years there has been a renaissance in the Medway Sound lead by singers such as Pete Molinari. The Medway Poets were formed in 1977 and disbanded in 1982 having performed at major literary festivals and on TV and Radio. They became a major influence to writers in the area. From the core of this group the anti conceptual/pro painting movements of Stuckism and Remodernism came into being.

Transport

Roads

Chatham stood on Watling Street, the Roman road from London to the Kent Coast; the length of it from Chatham to Canterbury was turnpiked in 1730, to become the A2 main road in the 1920s. Now, the M2 motorway diverts all through traffic south of the Medway Towns. The central bus station for the towns is in Chatham, within walking distance of the railway station. On the 19th September 2006 the Ring Road in Chatham was made 2 way and the Sir John Hawkins flyover was closed except for buses, taxis and cycles as part of the regeneration of Medway. In 2007 the flyover will be removed (although the council claimed before the local election that it would be reviewed) to make way for the Pentagon Shopping Centre expansion (owned by the council) to the river and a new bus station.

Railways

The railway came to Chatham in 1858: first when the East Kent Railway opened a line to Faversham; and later in the year when the short section to connect with the North Kent Line to London was opened. Chatham railway station is the main interchange for the Medway towns.
Part of the railway in what is now Chatham Historic Dockyard is still in operation, run by the North Kent Industrial Locomotive Society.

River Medway

The River Medway, apart from its use by warships to travel to and from the dockyard, was an important means of communication to the interior of Kent. Timber from the Weald for shipbuilding and agricultural produce were among the cargoes. Sun Pier in Chatham was one of many such along the river.

Sports

The town's top Association Football club, Chatham Town F.C., plays in the Isthmian League Division One South. Lordswood F.C. play in the Kent League. The defunct Chatham Excelsior F.C. were one of the early pioneers of football in southern England.

Notable people

Charles Dickens lived in the town as a boy, both in the Brook and in Ordnance Terrace before the railway station was built just opposite. He subsequently described it as the happiest period of his childhood, and eventually returned to the area in adulthood when he bought a house in nearby Gad's Hill. The Medway area features in some of his novels.
Others of note include the composer Percy Whitlock (1903-1946); the painter and killer Richard Dadd (1819-1887); and, in more modern times, the artist/poet/musician Billy Childish and poet/painter/storyteller and mythographer Bill Lewis. The Brit Artist Tracey Emin studied at KIAD and lived at Castle Road, Rochester and in Chatham. The author and screenwriter Stel Pavlou also attended Chatham Grammar School for Boys, and boyband-singer Lee Ryan.

See also

★ Battle of Chatham

References

1. The Register

External links

★ Chatham News Index (1899–1965)

★ 19th century map showing boundary of Chatham

★ Webpage about Chatham's fortifications