Chatham Historical Dockyard

For Mother's Day, we took Doreen to the Chatham Historical Dockyard for a day out. There's been a Royal Dockyard here since Tudor times until it was closed in the 1980s ripping the heart out of the Medway Towns. Doreen used to work as a clippie on the buses that met the workers as they left the yard at the end of their shift. Her husband Ken worked for the Admiralty and was based, for a time at Chatham.

Now, the Dockyard is a tourist attraction telling the story of the Royal Navy, particularly the story of the wooden fighting ships although it built, and has on display iron vessels, a submarine and a modern warship.

Today's shot is of the Ropery, where all the cordage used in rigging sailing ships was made in what remains, at a quarter of a mile long Europe's longest building. Here we were treated to a very good guided tour of the building by a very entertaining "character". From there we went to see the Command of the Oceans exhibit which was equally fascinating, documenting in an excellent audiovisual tour the various stages of constructing a ship of the line.

The ticket is valid for a year which is good as we only covered about a third of the whole site. There's much more to see. The scones were good in the cafe too!