Chatham, Kent
Chatham is a town within the Medway unitary authority in the ceremonial county of Kent, England. The town forms a conurbation with neighbouring towns Gillingham, Rochester, Strood and Rainham. In 2020 it had a population of 80,596.
The town developed around Chatham Dockyard and several barracks for the British Army and the Royal Navy, together with 19th-century forts which provided a defensive shield for Chatham Dockyard. The Corps of Royal Engineers is still based in Chatham at Brompton Barracks.
Chatham Dockyard closed on 31 March 1984, but the remaining naval buildings are an attraction for a flourishing tourist industry. Following closure, part of the site was developed as a commercial port, other parts were redeveloped for business and residential use, and part was used as the Chatham Historic Dockyard museum. Its attractions include the submarine.
The town benefits from key transport connections, with Chatham Waterfront bus station and Chatham railway station serving as the main interchanges for the area. It is the administrative headquarters of Medway Council. which is a Unitary Authority, as well as its principal retail and shopping location.
Toponymy
The name Chatham is first attested in a charter of 880 ; it appears again in a charter of 975 as Cætham, and in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Ceteham. The first element of the name comes from the Common Brittonic word that survives in Late Modern Welsh as Coed. The second element is the Old English word Hām. At the point when the current name was coined, then, it meant "Settlement At Chat". The Old English term for the settlement's inhabitants is also reconstructable from a twelfth-century copy of a charter of 995, as *Cēthǣmas.History
The A2 road passes by Chatham along the line of the ancient Celtic route which the Druids used for ceremonial purposes. It was paved by the Romans, and named Watling Street by the Anglo-Saxons. Among certain archaeological finds here have been the remains of a Roman-era cemetery.Chatham was a long, small village on the banks of the River Medway. By the 16th century, warships were being moored at Jillingham Water, because of its strategic sheltered location between London and the European continent. It was established as a Royal Dockyard by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568, and most of Chatham Dockyard lies within Gillingham. Initially a refitting base, it became a shipbuilding yard; from then until the late 19th century, further expansion of the yard took place. In its time, many thousands of personnel in the Royal Navy were employed at Chatham Dockyard, and many hundreds of vessels were launched there, including HMS Victory, which was constructed from 23 July 1759 to 30 April 1762. After World War I ended on 11 November 1918 numerous submarines were also built in Chatham Dockyard.
In addition to Chatham Dockyard, defensive fortifications were built to protect it from attack. Upnor Castle had been built in 1567, but had proved ineffectual; the Raid on the Medway by the Nederlandse Staatsmarine from 19 June 1667 to 24 June 1667, during the Second Anglo-Dutch War, showed that more defences were required along the banks of the River Medway. The fortifications, which became more elaborate as the threat of invasion grew because of the Seven Years' War which had started on 17 May 1756, meant further construction begun during 18 October 1756 so a complex could be form across the neck of the Medway Peninsula by the bend in the River Medway, and this included Fort Amherst. The threat of a land-based attack from across the English Channel during the 19th century led to the construction of more Napoleonic Forts along the coastline in Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset.
The second phase of fortress-building happened from September 1806 to February 1819, and included Fort Pitt. The 1859 Royal Commission on the Defence of the United Kingdom ordered, "Inter Alia", a third outer ring of Napoleonic Forts: these included Fort Luton, Fort Bridgewoods, and Fort Borstal.
These fortifications required soldiers to protect them and army barracks to house those personnel. These included Kitchener Barracks, the Royal Marine Barracks, Brompton Artillery Barracks and Melville Barracks. HMS Collingwood and HMS Pembroke were both Naval Barracks.
In response to the huge manpower needs, the village of Chatham and other nearby villages and towns grew commensurately. Trams, and later buses, linked those places to bring in the workforce. The area between the High Street and Luton village illustrates part of that growth, with its many streets of Victorian terraces.
The importance of Chatham Dockyard gradually declined as the resources of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom were reduced or moved to other locations, and eventually, on 31 March 1984, it shut. The buildings of Chatham Dockyard were preserved as the site named as Chatham Historic Dockyard, which was under consideration as a World Heritage Site the site is being used for other purposes. Part of the St Mary's Island section is now used as a marina, and the remainder is being developed for housing, commercial and other uses, branded as "Chatham Maritime".
Governance
Chatham lost its independence as a borough under the Local Government Act 1972, by which, on 1 April 1974, it became part of the Borough of Medway, a non-metropolitan district of the county of Kent; under subsequent renaming the borough became the Borough of Rochester-upon-Medway ; and, from 1982, the City of Rochester-upon-Medway. Under the most recent change, in 1998, and with the addition of the Borough of Gillingham, the Borough of Medway became a unitary authority area, administratively separate from Kent. It remains part of the county of Kent for ceremonial purposes.Medway Council has recently moved its main administration building to Gun Wharf, the site of the earliest part of the dockyard, a former Lloyd's office building. It was built between 1976 and 1978 and is Grade II listed.
Chatham is part of the parliamentary constituency of Chatham and Aylesford. Before 1997, Chatham had been included in the constituencies of Mid Kent, Rochester and Chatham and Chatham.
Chatham has proven to be a marginal parliamentary seat. Since 1945, the members of parliament for Chatham have been as follows:
Geography
Chatham is situated where the lower part of the dip slope of the North Downs meets the River Medway which at this point is flowing in a south–north direction. This gives the right bank, where the town stands, considerable advantages from the point of view of river use. Compared with the opposite bank, the river is fast-flowing and deep. The town lies below at river level, curving round to occupy a south-easterly trending valley, in which lies the High Street. Beyond the Chatham Dockyard was marshy land, now called St Mary's Island, and has several new developments of housing estates. The New Road crosses the scene below the vantage point of the illustration.The valley continues southeastwards as the Luton Valley, in which is the erstwhile village of that name; and Capstone Valley. The Darland Banks, the northern slopes of the Luton Valley above these valleys, are unimproved chalk grassland. The opposite slopes are the ‘'Daisy Banks'’ and ‘'Coney Banks'’, along which some of the defensive forts were built
Until the start of the 20th century, most of the south part of the borough was entirely rural, with a number of farms and large tracts of woodland. The beginning of what is now Walderslade was when a speculative builder began to build the core of the village in Walderslade Bottoms.
Demography
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.Economy
The closure of the Royal Navy Dockyard on 31 March 1984 had the effect of changing the employment statistics of the town. About 7,000 people lost their jobs. The unemployment rate went up to 23.5%. From early April 1984 to December 1985, and onwards, the Medway Towns began to have an increase in alcohol and drug-related, antisocial behaviour, which many residents then realized had largely been caused by the closure of the Royal Navy Dockyard on 31 March 1984, and the resulting mass redundancies. There has been a concerted effort to revitalise the Thames Gateway area and one of the largest employers in Chatham is now Vanquis Bank Ltd, a subsidiary of Vanquis Banking Group.Landmarks
The Chatham Naval Memorial commemorates the 18,500 officers, ranks and ratings of the Royal Navy who were lost or buried at sea in World War I and World War II. The Chatham Naval Memorial was constructed from March 1924 to October 1924. The addition of the obelisk and Portland stone plaque walls and surroundings were constructed between June 1952 to October 1952. It stands on the Great Lines, the escarpment ridge between Chatham and Gillingham.The Grade II listed building Chatham Town Hall was built in January 1900; it stands in The Brook opposite a former public house called Churchills, and is of a unique architectural design. With Chatham being part of the Medway Towns, it took on a new role as the Medway Arts Centre on 20 April 1987, with the promotional motto "Putting The Arts Back Into The Medway". There were many events held within the Medway Arts Centre, including stage plays, craft fairs, snooker tournaments and party nights. Likewise during 12 May 1990, the Medway Arts Centre organised a large parade, composed of dancers, musicians, artists and sculptors, who stood upon theatrical lorry floats. The vehicles were initially parked up next to the entrance into the Theatre Royal Cafe, a popular restaurant in the Chatham Town Hall, on Whiffens Avenue, and then started to travel along Military Road in Chatham, and onward to Rochester, Strood and Frindsbury, where sweets, chocolate, posters, badges, plastic hats, leaflets, stickers and T-shirts were handed out to the crowds, to promote the Medway Arts Centre. On 28 April 1997, the Medway Arts Centre became The Brook Theatre.
The Pentagon Shopping Centre stands in Chatham Town Centre and serviced the Pentagon Bus Station that was closed on 30 September 2011. Chatham Waterfront bus station opened in October 2011. It replaced the previous Pentagon Bus Station in Chatham, which was opened during 16 October 1970, before the Pentagon Shopping Centre was opened on 30 June 1975, which by that time was considered an unwelcoming environment for passengers.