Chatham (Pronounced 'chat-um') means a homestead in the woods. It a mixture of the Celtic 'ced', meaning 'wood' and the Saxon word 'ham', as 'homestead or village'. It was first recorded as Cetham in 880, and Ceteham in Domesday Book.
Chatham's parish church was dedicated to St Mary and is the 5th church to stand on the existing site since Saxon times. The 2nd church was Norman and part of one of the arches is incorporated into the existing church. The old Norman west end was actually the east end, i.e. the two arches north and south led into eastern chapels either side of the chancel. The chancel arch, proper, became the Baptistery arch at the new west end.
Built into the porch is stone tablet depicting the goddess Euphrosyne, and is believed to date from when Greek traders used the Medway.
In 1540, a naval fleet first appeared on the Medway and so began regular use of the river below the church as an anchorage. By now, St. Mary's was the parish church of the village of Chatham. As the dockyard expanded over the next two centuries so did the congregation, as did the church itself. A gallery was first built at the western end complete with a small lantern bell tower, which was to appear in contemporary prints of the dockyard until the late 19th century.
When the Dutch invaded in 1667, they were engaged by the guns at Upnor Castle, which resulted in all the windows of St. Marys facing that direction being blown in, and eventually replaced at the expense of the Royal Navy. By 1788, the rest of the church had structural problems and a fire in 1798 meant that the nave and chancel were replaced. This was to remain the case until 1887 when a new chancel was completed. On the 23rd April 1897, The Times newspaper reported that the erection of a new tower at St Mary's Church will proceed, the plans were drawn by Sir Arthur Bloomfield and the tower will be constructed as a memorial to the Queen�s reign. The tower is built on the Norman foundations, which have caused the tower to list a little.
By 1903, the nave had been completely re-built. The organ (Samuel Green, 1790s) was sold to Germany, and the church closed in 1973.
During the reign of Henry VIII, the mud banks of the river Medway near Chatham were used for careening ships. Elizabeth I founded the dockyard at Chatham in the late 16th century and Upnor Castle was built a short way downstream for its defence. The dockyard at Chatham was used increasingly by the Royal Navy during the wars with Spain, and a chain was thrown across the river at Gillingham to provide additional defence. In the 1620s, the dockyard was greatly enlarged, and a wall built around it. Although this wall had some bastions, it was never really expected to face a full-scale landward attack. The wall was designed more to keep the prying eyes of enemy agents out of the dockyard and to prevent the sailors from deserting.....more
Royal Dockyards provided the Royal Navy with the shore support facilities it required to build, repair and maintain the fleet. Central to any Royal Dockyard were, as the name suggests, their dry docks and it was the provision of these expensive structures that set the Royal Yards apart from their civilian counterparts until well into the 19th century.....more
Chatham station was opened on 25 January 1858, when the East Kent Railway opened a single line eastwards to Faversham. Two months later, On 29 March, the link with the North Kent Line at Strood was opened; and the new railway reached Dover Priory in 1861....more
