Chatham Dockyard (2 page)

The site of the Tudor dockyard constructed
c.
1570. Later occupied by the Ordnance Wharf, it lay immediately below St Mary’s parish church.

Among the earliest features to be added to the dockyard at Chatham was that of a mast pond ‘for the better preserving’ of mast timbers and which appears to have been completed in the year 1570.
¹¹
This was a specialised facility and was to be of sufficient size as to allow a total of seventy-seven mast timbers to be held in storage fully immersed in water. Converted from fir trees grown in northern Europe, it was necessary that these timbers were kept underwater so as to ensure that they did not dry out and so become unusable when taken on board a ship. In addition to the building of a mast pond, a mast house would also have been necessary, this needed by the mast makers who would have been employed in the cutting and shaping of the mast timbers prior to their transfer to the pond. However, the permanent staff at Chatham was still small, consisting of a clerk, purveyor and rat catcher. In addition and temporarily brought to the anchorage in that year, were sixty shipwrights and caulkers from Deptford, these employed on the twenty or so ships moored there during the winter period.
¹²

A further feature of the year 1570 was the acquisition of Hill House for use by those responsible for both administering the new yard and work carried out upon ships moored in the Medway. The house was a large and recently built property that fronted the modern-day Dock Road, overlooking the site of the new yard. Owned by the Dean and Chapter of Rochester, who also owned much of the land that had also been purchased for the new dockyard, it was stipulated that the ‘Officers of the Marine Causes’ should use Hill House to ‘mete and confere together of the weightie affairs of the said office’.
¹³
The house, later renamed Queen’s House, was to remain in the possession of the Admiralty until its demolition in the late eighteenth century. For virtually the entirety of that period, Hill House was under lease to the Admiralty rather than being under direct ownership.
¹⁴

During 1571 further land was rented from the Dean and Chapter, this time used for construction of a forge or anchor smithery, with a number of new storehouses also built. Confirming the entire site as a working naval dockyard and site of an important industrial military complex was the purchase of a flag bearing the cross of St George. Hoisted each morning, it summoned to work the 120 shipwrights who were at that time employed upon the repair and maintenance of the royal fleet.

As for the already existing population in the village of Chatham, the increasing use of the area by the Navy was beginning to bring considerable financial benefits. Previously dependent on farming the fields that surrounded the village or from fishing the Medway, a number of alternative opportunities now existed. For one thing, a new merchant class came into being, either employing local villagers or emerging from among the villagers themselves. For the most part, they would have been small-time traders, supplying the needs of the skilled workers of the yard and seamen on board the ships. Other villagers would have found direct employment within the dockyard. For the most part, this would have been the young and able bodied. Although none would have possessed shipbuilding skills, they could certainly have undertaken various unskilled tasks associated with running a dockyard. The least ambitious could enter as labourers, while others might seek employment as teamsters (driving cart horses in shifting large objects) or sawyers.

Other landmarks in the early history of the yard quickly followed. On 25 March 1572, Matthew Baker (1530–1613), the royal Master Shipwright, was appointed to the yard, while in September of the following year Queen Elizabeth (on the throne from 1558–1603) undertook an official visit. Baker, who was the leading English shipbuilder of his age, had turned the practice of designing ships into a science. Whereas earlier shipwrights had relied upon line of sight and rule of thumb to achieve their end product, Baker planned out his future ships through geometrical calculations. In doing so he also adopted draught plans from which curved patterns or moulds could be cut and then used for the accurate shaping of timbers that were used to build his ships. However, Baker would not have been employed exclusively at Chatham, as most of his shipbuilding work was concentrated on Deptford. Instead, he must have journeyed frequently between the two yards, encouraged to give his advice on the layout and necessary facilities for the new yard being constructed at Chatham. For this, Baker was ideally suited, having already visited a number of foreign dockyards including the grand naval arsenal at Venice.

Under the supervision of Baker, other buildings were soon being added to the yard, including sawpits, further workshops and storehouses, while the whole area was fenced with a hedge in 1579.
¹⁵
Of further significance was the addition of a wharf and crane in 1580. The purpose of the wharf was to offload heavy items such as ordnance and unused stores prior to a vessel undergoing repair. The crane, which was capable of carrying loads of up to 3 tons, would have had a treadmill drive located inside a protective house structure and from which a swing jib projected. The unloading wharf itself was some 378ft in length and 40ft wide. It is recorded that construction of the wharf was undertaken at a cost of 5
s
per foot.
¹⁶

Giving an early specialism to Chatham and foreshadowing its later important role in carrying out long-term repair work on the most important ships of the Navy, was the construction of a dry dock in 1581. This was very directed in its use, designed only for the accommodation of galleys. At the time, most commonly associated with the Mediterranean, galleys were shallow drafted, lightweight vessels that were propelled by oars. As such, they were not best suited to northern waters, being unable to withstand the pounding of heavy seas. Nevertheless, such ships were not unknown in the waters of northern Europe, being free of a dependency on the wind and able to easily outmanoeuvre an enemy warship that, through being only sail powered, might well have found itself becalmed. As regards the Navy of Queen Elizabeth, the number of galleys employed, during any one period of time, never exceeded five. Some were built in England while others had been captured in battle. The first galley to be brought into the new dry dock at Chatham was
Eleanor
. Described by contemporaries as large,
Eleanor
, later renamed
Bonavolia
, had a total crew of 300, and was originally captured from the French during the 1560s. It was, perhaps, for this reason, that one role allocated to
Eleanor
while at Chatham, was the entertainment of foreign dignitaries whom the Queen wished to impress. Other than this, the main duties on which the royal galleys were employed under Elizabeth was that of towing dismasted vessels, while
Eleanor
was also responsible for undertaking a survey of the Thames in 1588.

The graving dock at Chatham, which was designed to accommodate galleys, would have been very different in appearance from those built at a later date. For one thing, it would have been much shallower in depth, the dock not needing to accommodate the larger, deep-draughted sailing ships that were to totally dominate the yard in later years. Furthermore, the galley dock may not even have had any special flooring, the dock being just a trench cut into a mud embankment. As for the entrance to the dock,
this would also have been of earth and laboriously broken up and then repaired every time a ship moved in or out of dock. Although this was the normal entrance design for such docks at the time, the system clearly had its drawbacks. Thus, about a year after the galley dock first came into use, it was fitted with a pair of floodgates.

With Baker involved in the planning of this major new dockyard at Chatham, he finally decided that the role of the yard could be extended into the realms of shipbuilding. Nothing too dramatic as it happens, with the first vessel to be constructed at Chatham,
Sunne
, a pinnace of only forty tons in weight. Designed to operate in advance of the fleet, her role was to warn of approaching danger. In service during the Armada campaign of 1588, she was present at the final and decisive Battle of Gravelines. Any contemporary mariner, even one with only the most rudimentary knowledge of ship design, would instantly have recognised
Sunne
as one of Matthew Baker’s products. Apart from anything else, she looked like a warship, being designed for speed through her sleek lines and low forecastle with approximately five guns on her deck.

While specific mention has been made of the two royal dockyards of Deptford and Woolwich, nothing so far has been said of Portsmouth as a naval dockyard. This might seem surprising, given that Portsmouth was not only the first permanent naval dockyard to be established in Britain, but is usually regarded as the largest and most important of such establishments. However, during the first century of Chatham dockyard’s existence, Portsmouth was relatively insignificant. Having been established during the reign of Henry VII, Portsmouth had seen the construction of a dry dock (be it of a similar primitive design to that of the galley dock at Chatham) together with other shipbuilding and repair facilities. Yet, and primarily as a result of developments in the Medway and Thames, the yard at Portsmouth was little used. Not that it was abandoned; a small number of ships were retained at Portsmouth for the defence of the south coast, with these vessels maintained by a small workforce that continued to be employed at the dockyard.

In future years, a clear love-hate relationship would emerge between those who either worked in or favoured the yard at Chatham and those similarly connected with Portsmouth. An early contributor to this debate was Admiral Sir William Monson, an experienced naval officer and writer of a series of tracts that debated the form in which the Navy of the early seventeenth century should develop. Monson was absolutely convinced that Chatham had a number of advantages over Portsmouth:

Chatham is so safe and secure a port for the ships to ride in that his Majesty’s may better ride with a hawser at Chatham than with a cable at Portsmouth.

To this, he added:

The water at Chatham flows sufficiently every spring tide to grave the greatest ships. And it is a doubt whether it can be made to heighten so much at Portsmouth as to do the like.

No wind or weather can endanger the coming home of an anchor in Chatham, and the rival affords sufficient space for every ship to ride without annoying one another. As to the contrary, a storm, with a wind from the north-east to the south-south-east, will stretch the cables in Portsmouth; and if any of their anchors come home they cannot avoid boarding one another, to their exceeding great damage and danger, the channel being so narrow.

To finally drive the point home, Monson concluded:

In comparison betwixt Chatham and Portsmouth, Chatham is the best and safest place, and I wish that our whole navy may be kept at Chatham and not make any continual residence but there only, considering the former reasons.
¹⁷

While Portsmouth was being sidelined, the yard at Deptford was viewed very differently. Of limited value as a naval base, it having an inadequate harbour, Deptford nevertheless possessed a highly valued dockyard. Since its creation, this yard had taken on the building of the nation’s largest warships, with its proximity to London serving as a further advantage, allowing administrators in London to easily oversee the progress of work at this yard. For this reason, at a time when thought was being given to the funding of new and extensive repair and refit facilities, Deptford was considered a prime candidate. Alternatively, this new facility could be built at Chatham. Either way, wherever this new facility was located, it would establish the chosen yard as the nation’s premier naval industrial complex.

The debate over the siting of the new repair facility reached its peak in 1611 when an important government enquiry was underway. One argument advanced for it not being built at Chatham was a concern that the Medway was subject to increased silting that would, at some point in the future, seriously reduce its overall depth. This, as it happens, was to be proved correct, with the yard at Chatham, during the eighteenth century, finding itself seriously threatened by rapid shoaling that made it difficult for larger ships to reach the dockyard.
¹⁸
For this reason, it is interesting to note that such concerns existed some 200 years earlier. As to the cause, accusatory fingers at that time were being pointed at both the use of chalk in ‘fitting up the piles’ of Rochester Bridge and to colonies of mussels newly arriving in the Medway. As regards the former, it seems that large quantities of chalk were being used to support the stanchions of the bridge, with much of this chalk subsequently washed into the Medway and supposedly heightening the overall depth of the river. Even more fanciful, was the suggestion that naval warships now moored in the river were bringing large numbers of mussels that ‘bred upon the [outer hulls of those] ships’. In turn, these mussels would be regularly removed through the process of graving and ‘bed in the river’ and ‘make such banks as will stay the current and fill it up’.
¹⁹
Ultimately, both arguments were rejected, it being suggested that the river, as a result of the following evidence, was actually gaining in depth: