Maritime MedwayHow the River Medway made history

About this book

This book is an introduction to the history of theRiver Medway. It takes the main themes of that historyand tries to highlight how they have distinctivelyaffected the lives of Medway people, past and present.Some of these themes have been covered in depthover the years by specialist books. However, ageneral, approachable and reliable publication has longbeen lacking.

Cover image: The Brunswick prison hulk painted by aFrench prisoner c1800.Image de couverture : Le « hulk » Brunswick, un ponton-prison peint par un prisonnier français, vers 1800.

Omslagillustratie: Het gevangenisschip Brunswick,geschilderd door een Franse krijgsgevangene, ±1800.

Who is this book for?

This book will be valuable: • to the pupils and students of north Kent needing toset their studies in context;

• to visitors to the area who want know what makesit special;

• to local people wanting a summary of the Medway’s story;

• to the general reader looking for a stepping stone tofurther discoveries.

3

Medway’s location 4

1 Introduction 5

What is the River Medway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5

Where does the River Medway begin? . . . . . . . . . . .5

Why is the River Medway important? . . . . . . . . . . . .5

How have people crossed the River Medway? . . . . .6

How has the river changed the way the area has grown? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7

2 Ecology 10

What is ecology? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Why is the River Medway’s ecology important? . . .10

What are the main habitats of the Medway estuary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

What lives in the estuary waters? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Which birds live on or near the River Medway? . . .12

What are the main local wildlife reserves close to the river? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

What are the dangers to the River Medway’s ecosystem and how can it be protected? . . . . . . . .14

3 Fishing 16

Why has animal life in the river changed? . . . . . . . .16

Who do the fish in the river belong to? . . . . . . . . .16

What sort of boats did Medway fishermen use? . .17

How were the fish caught? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18

Who were the fishermen? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .20

4 Ship and boat building 22

What kind of ships and boats were built on the River Medway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .22

How did shipbuilding begin on the River Medway? .22

Where were the private shipyards? . . . . . . . . . . . . .23

5 Industry 28

Why are rivers important to industry? . . . . . . . . . .28

What is a mill? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .28

What were the first important industries to use the River Medway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .29

Why did industries on the Medway change? . . . . . .31

What were the most well-known companies on the River Medway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33

Where have all the Medway industries gone? . . . . .33

6 The hulks 36

What were the hulks? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

Why were hulks used? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .36

What did the hulks look like? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .37

What was it like living on a hulk? . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39

Who was in charge? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .40

Who were the convicts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .41

Why did the hulks come to an end? . . . . . . . . . . .42

7 Enjoying the River Medway 44

What are the main leisure activities people have enjoyed on the Medway? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

8 The future 50

What is regeneration? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .50

What does the future hold for the River Medway’s businesses? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .51

What will happen to the environment? . . . . . . . . . .52

Contents

4

RiverMedway

Medway’s locationLONDON

MedwayGreenwich

Southend-on-Sea

DartfordGravesend

Rochester

Maidstone

RoyalTunbridge Wells

Faversham

WhitstableMargate

Ramsgate

DoverAshford

RyeBattle

Folkestone

Canterbury

SheernessEBBSFLEET

STRATFORD

High speed rail link

Medway

5

1 Introduction

What is the River Medway?

The Medway is the longest river in Kent. No one issure how it got its name, but it is probably taken fromthe Anglo-Saxon words for ‘middle way’, because theriver seems to cut the north of the county in two.Without the Medway the history of Kent would bequite different.

This book introduces some of the ways the river hasaffected the lives of people who have lived in Kent,from the very earliest times up to the present day. It looks mainly at the final 15 miles of the Medwaybefore it meets the Thames and then the sea. Here theriver is wider, deeper, saltier and busier, and it is herethat it has given its name to a historic but fast-growingcommunity of people: Medway.

Where does the River Medwaybegin?

Most rivers in the world do the same thing; they beginon high ground and flow to the sea. The Medwayappears out of a spring in the village of Turner’s Hill inWest Sussex, where it is more than 170 metres abovesea level. It then follows its course through Kent for113 kilometres (70 miles) before meeting the Thamesat Sheerness.

Why is the River Medwayimportant?

The river follows the shape of the land. People, intheir turn, have for many thousands of years followedthe river and made their home by or near its banks.Tonbridge, Maidstone, Rochester and many othersmaller places are found where they are todaybecause of the Medway.

• It has given people water, for themselves, theiranimals and their crops.

• It has provided food, both fish and shellfish.• It has helped people to defend themselves from attack.

• It is a transport system, which is especially useful formoving heavy things.

• It has been a runway for launching huge aeroplanes.• It has supplied the raw material for heavy industry.• It has been a home to the English navy.• It is an important habitat for many unusual animalsand birds.

Living by a river does mean that people’s homes aremore likely to flood, although this has not been such aproblem in recent years in the lower reaches of theriver, between Maidstone and the sea. The mouth ofthe river has also been a useful way into Kent formany possible invaders, from the Vikings in the ninthcentury to the Dutch in the seventeenth century.

River Medway at Rochester Rivière Medway à Rochester De rivier de Medway bij Rochester

6

How have people crossed the River Medway?

Road bridges at Rochester

Boats can take small numbers of people, animals andeven cars or buses across rivers at special crossingpoints. Ferries are still used in this way today. A busyroute, though, may need something more. When theRomans invaded Britain in AD 43, their historian,Cassius Dio, described the army swimming across ariver to defeat the Britons in a great battle. No one

knows for sure that this was theMedway, but what is certain is

that some time afterwards the victorious Romans builtthe first bridge across the river, at Rochester. Thisbridge was important because it helped to completethe main Roman road in Kent between Dover andLondon. In fact the bridge gave its name to the town. In Roman times, Rochester was called Durobrivae, or‘the strong place by the bridge’.

The Roman armies left Britain in about AD 410. Their bridge over the Medway was patched up andcontinued to carry traffic for many hundreds of years.It finally started to fall down in the fourteenth century.Two men paid for a new bridge, Sir Robert Knollesand Sir John de Cobham, but it did not join with thehigh street like the old one. Instead it was built a littleupstream, further towards Rochester Castle. It wasmade out of stone and opened in 1391. It had manyarches, which squeezed the water into fast-flowingchannels and taking a boat through could be difficult.Nevertheless it lasted for more than 450 years.

In 1856 a new bridge was built where the Romanbridge had been. This one was made of cast iron. Its three arches came low over the water at high tideand boats often had trouble passing underneath. The bridge was severely damaged after a number ofaccidents and in 1914 it was rebuilt with new arches ontop instead of underneath. It is this version that stillstands today and carries the traffic from Rochester toStrood. Yet another bridge, opened in 1970, handlesroad traffic going in the other direction.

The course of the MedwayIt is no accident that the River Medway takes asharp turn to the north as it reaches the Maidstonearea. It runs into the North Downs, a row of hillswhich stretch for 190 kilometres (120 miles) fromSurrey, across Kent, to the coast at Dover. As theriver cannot flow uphill, it turns and flows throughthe gap in the downs between Wouldham andHalling. This takes it along a valley to Rochester.The same flatter landscape that allowed the riverthrough made it much easier to build and to usethe main road (A228) and the railway line that runalongside the river during this stretch.

Tea cup showing the bridgecompleted in 1856

Tasse à thé illustrant le pontterminé en 1856

Theekopje met afbeeldingvan de brug, voltooid in 1856

The Rochester Bridge disasterIn 1816 a young man called Thomas Gilbertdecided to celebrate his twenty-first birthday witha trip on the River Medway and a picnic at Halling.He invited four members of his family and ninegirls from his father’s boarding school in Chatham.A local waterman was hired to provide and takecare of the boat. The trip up the river and thepicnic went well and everyone got back into theboat at about 7pm, to travel downstream toChatham. No one realised that repairs toRochester Bridge had left some planks of woodfixed just below the surface of the water underone of the arches. The boat hit the wood,overturned and everybody on board was drowned,with only the waterman’s pet dog able to swimashore. A large memorial stone to all fifteen peoplewho lost their lives was placed in the BaptistChurch in Chatham. Today it is ondisplay in the Guildhall Museum.

Mourning ring of the disaster

Anneau de deuil du désastre

Herdenkingsring van de ramp

Ranscombe Farm Country Park, Cuxton

Parc naturel « Ranscombe Farm Country Park », à Cuxton

Ranscombe Farm Country Park in Cuxton

7

Rail bridges at Rochester

The London, Chatham and Dover Railway built the firstrail bridge at Rochester, to link their station at Chathamwith Strood. It opened in 1858. A second rail crossingwas added in 1892 and this is the one still in use.

Other crossings

Today, near the village of Cuxton, upstream fromRochester, there are three bridges. Two carry the M2 motorway. The third was built for the high speed rail link between the Channel Tunnel and St Pancras International.

A different sort of crossing was opened, downstreamfrom Rochester, in 1996. This is the Medway Tunnel,which runs from Chatham Maritime to Frindsbury. It was made by sinking a huge tube into the river insections and was the first tunnel to be built in this wayin England. Although no bikes are allowed normally, in2007 the tunnel was closed to allow nearly 200 cycliststhrough as part of the first stage of the Tour de France.

How has the river changed theway the area has grown?

Defence

The Romans were interested in the place whereRochester is now because it was a good place to crossthe River Medway, whether by boat or by a bridge.Once they had built a bridge, it had to be protected.There was probably a group of soldiers always livingnext to it, in the town of Durobrivae. A wall was builtaround the town to help the soldiers do their job.

This wall was still standing many hundreds of yearslater when the Vikings came up the Medway but it wasnow a part of the Anglo-Saxon town of Rochester. The wall helped keep the Vikings out until King Alfredarrived and chased them off. Then, when William ofNormandy invaded England in 1066, he sent hisknights all over the country to build castles to helphim keep control of his new kingdom. Many of theseknights chose the old Roman towns, like Rochester,because they already had fortifications. So the RiverMedway gained another form of defence, in the shapeof the huge Norman castle that still stands by it today.

Chatham Dockyard

By the time Queen Elizabeth I came to the throne in1558, the Medway was already becoming the mainbase of England’s navy. Most of the important shipswere anchored in the river below Rochester whenthey were not in use. Warehouses and stores hadbeen built nearby to provide the ships and theirsailors with what they needed. Soon those ships werebeing repaired and new ones built, in a dockyard atChatham. The dockyard grew steadily over many years

and it provided many thousands of jobs for localpeople. It finally closed in 1984.

Transport

Before the railway, boats were the only way of movinglots of heavy things cheaply. But rivers need to belooked after if boats are to use them safely. In 1746the Medway was opened to large boats as far asTonbridge. As a result Rochester and Chatham, wherethe river was wide and deep, became places wherepeople could unload their goods and send them toother parts of Kent by road. Many companies came tothese towns because the river made it easy to bring inraw material and send out the things that they made.

The M2 bridge finished in 1963

Le pont de l’autoroute M2, terminé en 1963

De M2-brug, voltooid in 1963

Carlton China model ofRochester Castle

Miniature du château deRochester en porcelaine Carlton

Beeldje van Rochester Castle,uitgevoerd in Carlton porselein

Chatham Dockyard

Chantier naval de Chatham

De scheepswerf van Chatham

8

Upnor Castle and the Dutch RaidUpnor Castle was planned to protect the riverapproach to Chatham Dockyard and the largenumbers of ships moored there. It was built in twostages. In 1559 a great triangular bastion, or gunplatform, was set up on the bank of the Medway. A fortified block for soldiers to live in was built behindit, with space for more guns on the roof. In 1599 newwalls and towers were added, complete with a ditch,drawbridge and gatehouse on the landward side.

In 1667, a Dutch fleet, under the command of Michielde Ruyter, attacked and burnt the new fort atSheerness, at the mouth of the Medway. The leadingDutch ships then headed upstream. They brokethrough the chain that stretched across the water

between Gillingham and Hoo Ness, and sailed off withthe English flagship, the Royal Charles. Other shipswere burnt and sunk.

After a night spent at anchor, more Dutch shipspressed on towards Chatham. On 13 June they foughtwith the castle at Upnor, and were forced to turnback, although not before they had damaged a numberof English ships. Even though the castle prevented anattack on the Dockyard, the Dutch Raid was a terribledefeat for the English navy. The writer John Evelynvisited Chatham shortly afterwards to see the burntout ships lying in the river and wrote that they were a dreadful spectacle as ever any English men saw and adishonour never to be wiped off.

The Thames and Medway canal

A canal looks like a river but it is planned and dug by people, then filled with water. Many canals werebuilt in the eighteenth century, to move heavy things through places where there were no rivers. In 1824 a private company built a canal to link theRiver Medway with the River Thames. It ran fromStrood, through a long tunnel to Higham and then onto Gravesend. This cut down the journey time toLondon by many hours. But the canal was veryexpensive to build and the company never made aprofit from the boats that paid to use it. The canal wasopen only a few years before the tunnel was sold anda railway was built through it instead. This is the linethat still runs between Strood and Higham today. Upnor Castle Château d’Upnor Upnor Castle

The canal basin at Strood showing the mouth of theHigham tunnel

La cuvette du bassin à Strood avec l’entrée du tunnelde Higham

Het kanaal bij Strood, met zicht op de ingang van deHighamtunnel

Rochester Castle and RochesterBathing Establishment, c1840

Le château de Rochester et lesBains de Rochester, vers1840

Rochester Castle en het RochesterBathing Establishment, ±1840

10

2What is ecology?

Ecology is the study of how living things relate to eachother and their surroundings. Everything that exists ina particular place, including plants and animals but alsoresources like air and water, can be described as anecosystem. An ecosystem can be any size - as small asa garden or as large as the whole earth.

The River Medway and its estuary, which is where theriver widens before it meets the sea, form acomplicated ecosystem. It is made up of a wide rangeof different habitats.

Over many, many years, plants and animals haveevolved or adapted to fit their habitat, which is theenvironment in which they live. Sometimes, habitatscan change quickly so that plants and animals do notfit in anymore, which means they can die or disappear.People, especially large numbers of people, can oftenchange habitats without even realising it.

Why is the River Medway’secology important?

River estuaries are important because they are unusualecosystems and they are home to many special animals

and plants. As the River Medway turns east, afterpassing Rochester, Chatham, Brompton and Upnor, it suddenly gets very much wider. The tide flows overlarge areas of mud as it rises and falls. Islands appear inthe middle of the stream. The water becomes almostas salty as the sea. The estuary is continually changing,through each day and from year to year.

High levels of food in the river mud and water producean environment that is able to support large numbersof animals. Particularly important are the invertebrates.These are animals without backbones, which includewhelks, shrimps, crabs and worms.These in turn

become a source of food for other animals that cometo the estuary to feed.

People too, have used the estuary for hundreds ofyears. Their behaviour has affected the ecosystem.They have fished in the waters with great skill. Theyhave dredged the river by scooping up mud to keepriver channels clear and free flowing. They have builtforts on the islands and sea walls to keep the wateraway from towns and villages. They have fed their farmanimals by allowing them to graze on the marshes bythe river. They have used the river to carry away allkinds of rubbish and pollution.

Ecology

Looking across the estuary towards Hoo Fort and Upchurch Vue sur l’estuaire en direction du Fort de Hoo et d’Upchurch

Uitzicht over het estuarium, richting Hoo Fort en Upchurch

11

What are the main habitats of theMedway estuary?

Inter-tidal mudflats

The mudflats are long stretches of mud that existbetween high and low tide. They form an inter-tidalhabitat and are covered completely by water twice aday as the tide rises and falls. They do not generallysupport any plants except for eelgrass, which can growon some of the more sheltered mud banks. However,the mud itself is packed full of invertebrate life. This iswhy the mudflats are so important. It has been said thata square metre of mud contains the same amount ofenergy that a person would get from eating 16chocolate bars.

Saltmarsh

Saltmarshes are a little higher than the river mud. They are not inter-tidal and are only floodedoccasionally. However, they still form a habitat whichsupports only special plants that are able to cope with

being often covered by salt water. The plants themselveshelp to preserve the habitat because their roots andstems bind the muddy marsh together and stop it beingwashed away by the movement of the river.

The most common plants on the saltmarsh includesea aster, sea lavender, cordgrass and saltmarsh grass.A rare species called golden samphire is also found inthe area. The Medway estuary is one of the bestplaces in Britain for the study of a group of plantsknown as ‘glassworts’.

Grazing marsh

Grazing marsh is an area of pasture, or land, wherefarm animals are released to feed. It is drier thansaltmarsh. The water collects in ponds and channelsthat can be used by people to help manage thewetness of the marsh. They build sluice gates, whichare moveable barriers sunk into the streams. Thesecan be opened and closed to direct the water aroundthe grazing areas. The flooded ditches also stopanimals from escaping.

The plant life of the grazing marsh is made up of severalspecies of grass, but also many other plants includingsea barley, oak-leaved goose foot and sea clover.

Sea walls

The land of the estuary is protected in many areas bysea walls, which are wide, steep banks designed tokeep the river in its place, or limit its flooding to thesaltmarsh. Many of these were built hundreds of yearsago out of mud, earth and clay. After a while, largeareas of grassland began to form on the sea wallsthemselves and today many interesting plants can befound growing on them beside the River Medway.

The clay used for the walls was usually dug straightout of the ground by the river. The deep pits andditches that were left afterwards became new habitatsthemselves as they filled with water. Today theysupport many Medway reed beds.

Sea lavender Lavande de mer Zeelavendel

Grazing cattle near Allhallows Bétail au pâturage près d’Allhallows Grazend vee bij Allhallows

12

What lives in the estuary waters?

Water found in the estuary is not river water or seawater, but a changing mixture of the two. Salt contentin the water can be as high as 30 per cent. The specialnature of the habitat means that river estuaries areimportant in the lifecycle of many types of fish. Thesheltered environment provides a useful habitat forthem to feed, breed and grow. For sea fish like salmonthey act as gateways to the migration routes that leadto safe breeding grounds upstream.

Particularly large numbers of young fish spend thewinter months in the Medway estuary but the river hasalways been home to many different species. A survey

Unusual visitorsSurprising creatures have been discovered in thewaters of the Medway. Seals are occasionally spottedin the estuary. In 2008 a seal swam up the RiverMedway as far as Allington lock near Maidstone.

Sightings of dolphins are uncommon, but are known.One was trapped in a shallow pool at Otterham Quay

in June 2010. As the tide went out, the water becamemore and more shallow and an attempt was made torescue it. The dolphin died just as two men reached itto try to lift it into the river. When the body wasexamined later, it became clear that the dolphin wasvery ill and would not have survived for long, even inopen water. Single animals that become stranded inthis way are often dying.

One of the most unusual species of fish to be found inthe Medway estuary in recent years was a sea lamprey.It looked like a giant eel and was a full metre long.Lampreys are sometimes known as vampire fishbecause they have a sucker-like mouth with two setsof teeth that they use to cling on to other fish.

This lamprey was found in February 2004 by staff atKingsnorth after it had been taken in with the watersupply for the power station. It was alive and healthy.

At the time the Environment Agency commented thatthe fish was one of the first of its kind to be found inthe Medway estuary. The nature warden at the timesaid that it gave him quite a shock when he pulled itout of the water.

in 2006 found dace, stickleback, perch, sand spelt, roach,bleak, sand goby, bass, brown trout, eel, flounder, mulletand sprat by sampling the river at three points in itslower reaches. However, the two species that madeMedway fishing famous, the smelt and the oyster, havenow all but disappeared from the river.

Which birds live on or near theRiver Medway?

The Medway estuary is a very important habitat forbirds. Some of the birds spend the winter there;others use the estuary as a breeding area. Many birdspass through the area each year as they migrate toand from other countries.

Common seal Phoque commun Gewone zeehond

Sea lamprey Lamproie Zeelamprei

Redshank Chevalier gambette Tureluur

13

More than 130,000 water birds visit the estuaries ofthe River Medway and the River Swale each year. So many different species appear in such largenumbers that the area is of worldwide importance forthe following types of birds:

• Shelduck• Brent goose• Grey plover• Ringed plover• Pintail• Dunlin• Redshank

There are also large enough numbers to make theMedway estuary one of the most important Britishsites for seeing these species:

• Turnstone• Black-tailed godwit• Curlew• Great crested grebe• Shoveler• Teal• Wigeon• White-fronted goose

What are the main local wildlifereserves close to the river?

There are some spectacular bird watching sites in orvery close to Medway. These include the Royal Societyfor the Protection of Birds (RSPB) Reserve atNorthward Hill, which is the site of Britain’s largestpopulation of herons. About 150 pairs of them livethere. These big birds can often be spotted making

MigrationSome birds migrate. This means they travel each yearto a new habitat, either to find food, to breed, or inresponse to changes in the weather. Many speciesgather in flocks before starting on their journey. For larger birds, flying in large groups can save energy.

The timing of migration is probably linked to changesin the length of the daytime as the seasons pass. Once they start, birds can cover enormous distancesevery year. They usually follow the same route andsome species can be relied on to appear annually in acertain place at a certain time. It is, however, stillpossible for birds to get lost, especially if they areconfused by unusual weather patterns.

Migration is not just about flying. Most types ofpenguin can travel hundreds of miles through the seaduring their migratory season. Other animals, such aswildebeest, migrate too.

Migrating birds Oiseaux migrateurs Trekvogels

slow flights across the marshes. Cliffe Pools, betweenMedway and Gravesend, is an important site for wadingbirds, which fly there to breed. The RSPB is developinga new reserve on the site and manages eight reservesacross the North Kent Marshes, including NorMarshes and Motney Hill in Medway. At the momentthese sites cannot take visitors but they can be seenfrom footpaths at Riverside Country Park.

The Nor Marsh Reserve is a series of saltmarshislands that provide an ideal habitat for birds andother wildlife. In spring, redshanks and ringed ploversbreed there, and in winter the area is popular withbrent geese, Mediterranean gulls and goldeneyes. The reedbeds at Motney Hill are extremely important.

Grey Plover Pluvier argenté Zilverplevier

14

Riverside Country Park, near Gillingham, covers 100hectares of the Medway estuary. There are a numberof habitats within the park, including mudflats andsaltmarsh, ponds and reedbeds, grassland and scrub,which provide a home for wildlife.

What are the dangers to the River Medway’s ecosystem and how can it be protected?

The natural habitats in and around the River Medwayform a precious resource that needs to be managedproperly and conserved, or looked after, for the future.Despite the long list of bird species that live in and

around the North Kent Marshes and the Medwayestuary, many of them are now on a danger list. Thislist is marked with an amber traffic light, to show thatalthough numbers are good at the moment, they arelikely to be under threat in the future. If bird speciesare added to this amber list, it means their numbersare steadily decreasing or that their habitats arebecoming scarce.

Industries can damage the natural environment. The Medway estuary joins the Thames estuarybetween the Isle of Grain and Sheerness on the Isle ofSheppey. There are major dockyards around theestuary, as well as two power stations and two old oil

refineries. The growth of a busy port for large ships inthe estuary has led to the loss of some natural habitat.

All sorts of people like to use the River Medway –fishermen, boat owners, the army, hunters and jet skiusers among them. Enjoying the river in this wayaffects the environment and can create new dangersfor its habitats. Rules and regulations help to makesure the river is used properly and that the level ofdamage is kept as low as possible.

The Medway estuary is close to London and right inthe middle of a part of the country that has beennamed by the government as one ready for change.The people who plan this change are supposed to takegreat care to make sure that new developments donot harm the river environment or the animals andplants that live there.

Protection, conservation and improvement of theenvironment is a challenge as Medway begins tochange very quickly and new houses and businessesare built. Much of the land around the river is a Site ofNature Conservation Interest (SNCI). This means thelocal authority in charge of it has named it as a specialarea that needs to be included in all futuredevelopment plans. Green spaces, such as parks, andfeatures that will attract wildlife, are built into designsfor local housing estates.

The Environment Agency and other organisations tryto make sure that the River Medway does not sufferfrom pollution. Clean water is very important formaking sure that many species of fish continue to livein the river. However, people need protection too andnew sea walls and drains keep them safe from flooding.Northward Hill Nature Reserve Réserve naturelle de Northward Hill Het natuurreservaat Northward Hill

Riverside Country Park

Parc naturel de Riverside

Riverside Country Park

16

Why has animal life in the riverchanged?

Fish are very sensitive to changes in the water thatthey live in. River water may change for a number ofreasons: because of the weather, because of new plantspecies, because of pollution, or because of a mixtureof all three. Fishing itself can also damage particularspecies forever, if too many fish are killed before theycan breed. People have long been aware of theseproblems, which is why fishing is controlled by anumber of local rules and laws, some of them very old.

Who do the fish in the river belong to?

Hundreds of years ago, more-or-less everything wasthought of as belonging to the Crown – that is, thereigning king. The king made money by selling orrenting his land. He might also give it away to peopleto persuade them to be his friends. In the same waythe animals that lived in the forests and the fish thatswam in the rivers belonged to him too. Anyone whowanted to hunt those animals or catch those fish hadto have his permission. It was simpler to give thatpermission to groups of people rather than oneperson at a time. So fishermen began to form societiesor companies that organised all fishing activity andmade sure only company members caught any fish.

This system of running the Medway fishery wasextremely important because it meant that thenumber of fish taken out of the river could becontrolled. At certain times of the year some types offishing were banned to give the fish a chance to breed.Anyone caught breaking the rules would be fined.

Laws to control fishing in the Medway probably goback at least to Norman times. However, the firstpiece of evidence for the rules and regulationsthemselves dates to 1446. This is a charter, a kind ofwritten order, given by Henry VI. In it Henry says thatanyone who joined the official society of the citizensof Rochester could use whatever was living in theRiver Medway between Sheerness and Hawkwood(near the village of Burham). He also allowed the

citizens to control the Medway and organise whathappened on it, without interference from anyoneelse, no matter how important they were.

Henry’s charter means that any mayor of Rochester(now any mayor of Medway) becomes the ‘admiral’ ofthe river and has to hold a court every year toappoint new fishermen and punish anyone who breaksthe rules. This court still takes place in the Guildhall in

3Fishing

Admiralty Court double sided official seal

Sceau officiel double face du Tribunal de l’Amirauté

Officieel, dubbelzijdig zegel van Admiralty Court

Poster protecting the rights of the Medway fishery

Affiche pour la protection des droits de la société depêche de Medway

Poster ter bescherming van de rechten van deMedway-visserij

Silver salt cellar presented by the Rochester Oyster andFloating Fishery

Salière en argent présentée parla Société d’Ostréiculture et dePêche de Rochester

Zilveren zoutvaatje aangebodendoor de ‘Rochester Oyster andFloating Fishery’

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Often the best fishing could only be had at night. For this, every doble would have been equipped with aspecial lamp, or flare. This was like a cast-iron teapotor kettle, filled with colza oil. A thick piece of ropewas stuffed into the spout to act as a wick. Thissoaked up the oil and would burn for many hours. The lamp was extremely heavy and so would not beaffected by the movement of the boat.

Most importantly, the dobles were fitted with a wetwell. This was a box in the middle of the boat that satover some holes in the hull. These holes let in enoughwater to keep alive, or at least keep fresh, any fish thatwere put inside. Today, many fish are frozen on bigboats almost as soon as they are brought out of thewater. However, Medway fishermen had no way ofkeeping their catch very cold. The wet well meant theycould continue fishing for further catches without thefirst going stale. At the end of the trip they would liftthe fish out of the well with a lade net, a net with aniron frame shaped to reach the whole catch.

Fishing in a bawley

In place of the wet well, the larger Medway bawleyboat had a boiler. This was for shrimps, a veryimportant catch in the Medway, especially in the latenineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In fact theword ‘bawley’ is probably a way of saying ‘boiler’.

Boundary stonesIn medieval times there were very few maps. This madeit difficult to be sure where one person’s land ended andanother’s began. Towns and villages often used to marktheir boundaries with large stones stuck in the ground,sometimes carved with writing. Tall stones that could beseen from the river also identified the limits offisheries, which marked where certain groups ofpeople were allowed to fish. These stones werereplaced as they were damaged or fell down. Somesurvive in place today. There is still a stone markerat Hawkwood, to show the furthest limit upstreamthat Medway fishermen were allowed to work.

The stones visible at Lower Upnor today areanother boundary. Fishermen from London wereallowed to catch only certain kinds of fish fromthe water near the north bank of the Medway up to this point. The smaller stone at Upnor isthe older of the two, although it may not be asold as the date of 1204 that is carved on it.

This boiler was made of copper and it lay down in thehold, at the bottom of the boat. Bawleys were fittedwith boilers as shrimps began to replace oysters as themain catch on the Medway. The shrimps were tippedinto the boiler as soon as they were caught and cookedin seawater with extra salt added. After a few momentsthey would be lifted out, dried carefully with warm airand stored. In this way they would remain fresh.

Model of Medway doble

Modèle de « doble » - bateau de pêche typiquede Medway

Schaalmodel van een ‘doble’-bootje uit Medway

Boundary stones at Upnor marking limits ofthe rights of London fishing boats

Bornes à Upnor indiquant les limites duterritoire de pêche des bateaux londoniens

Grensstenen bij Upnor geven aan tot waarde Londense boten mogen vissen

Rochester. In 1748, as a sign of this part of the mayor’sjob, a silver oar was made and given to the city. It isstill kept on display in the Guildhall Museum.

What sort of boats did Medwayfishermen use?

Boats come in many different shapes and sizes. Each typeof boat is designed to do best one job in one place. Aboat built to take road traffic across a river will not lookthe same as one designed to carry coal along a canal.

Fishing boats going up and down the estuary need tobe easy to handle. The crew will have to concentrateon getting the fish out of the water without worryingabout where the boat is going all the time. It has to bestable, because nets are heavy. It needs to have roomfor the catch when it comes aboard. It might need towork in shallow water. It has to be strong, as fishing inall weathers is hard upon men and their equipment.

Fishing in a doble

The small size of a Medway doble made it an affordableway to set up as a fisherman. Dobles were so useful,however, that many men used them all their lives.

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Owners were proud of their bawley boats and liked torace against each other when returning from a fishingtrip. Sometimes official races were organised, either onthe Medway or elsewhere around the Kent coast. Two models of bawley boats are on display at theGuildhall Museum in Rochester.

How were the fish caught?

Different types of fish display different kinds ofbehaviour and enjoy different habitats. This means thatanyone fishing has to plan carefully and use thecorrect equipment to catch the fish that are wanted.Some Medway bawley boats could be refitted halfwaythrough the year to switch to another species of fish,as the numbers in the river changed.

Dredging for oysters

Oysters are molluscs, like snails, and they live inside ahard double-sided shell. People have eaten them,cooked and raw, for many hundreds of years. There isevidence that oysters from north Kent were goodenough to be shipped all the way to Rome in the firstcentury AD.

The problem with oysters is that they are so easy tocatch. They are also very sensitive to water qualityand temperature. Many years of over-fishing, pollutionand cold winters has meant that oysters are nolonger found in the Medway estuary. Up until themiddle of the nineteenth century, however, they wereperhaps the most important catch for anyoneworking on the Medway fishery. They were hugelypopular and very cheap, an essential part of the dietof many poorer people.

Organisation is important in oyster fishing because itis very easy to destroy the crop completely. TheMedway oyster beds were often seeded with youngoysters bought from elsewhere. The oysters werethen allowed to grow and fishing could not begin untilthey had reached a good size. All Medway fishermen

Treasure!Sometimes natural beds of oysters were found thathad lain undiscovered for many years. For Medwayfishermen, this was like finding buried treasure. In1916, a man called Charles Hill was given specialpermission to dredge outside the season, after comingacross a hidden oyster bed in Cookham Wood Reach.Between May and December he took 1.4 millionoysters. Unfortunately he cleared the river so wellthat no oysters ever grew there again.

In 1922 the Hill family found an oyster bed in Half AcreCreek that had been growing undisturbed during theFirst World War. They tried to keep it a secret andworked at night, dredging the creek in the darkness andthen putting way out to sea in the morning to sort thecatch. This worked for a while but even after the secretwas out, there were still enough oysters for a numberof boats to do well. Some crews were earning £80 aweek at this time – more than £2,000 in today’s money.

Silver fish measure Instrument en argent pourmesurer les poissons

Hill family at Halling c1900

La famille Hill à Halling, vers1900

De familie Hill bij Halling, ±1900

Bawley boat construction

Construction d’un bateau « bawley »

Een bawley-boot in aanbouw

Zilveren vismeetlat

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paid money regularly to the Rochester Oyster Fishery,which managed the business of oyster fishing and triedto settle any arguments over use of the beds.

When the oysters were ready, at the start of theseason in November, they were dredged. A dredgewas a net tied to a rectangular frame that had to bedragged across the beds, scooping up piles of oysters. It was punishingly hard work and done in all kinds ofweather. The dredgermen would suffer badly fromcracked hands and split skin at the base of their fingers,where they hauled on the ropes joined to the dredges.During the First World War, as many younger menenlisted in the army, women worked the oyster bedstoo. They were a common sight on the private oystergrounds off Motney Hill, downstream from Gillingham.

The Rochester Oyster Fishery fell into debt in the latenineteenth century, after it borrowed money to seedthe beds with new oysters. Hard winters followed andthe oyster crop did not appear. To make back some ofthe money, the fishery hired out some of its beds toprivate fishermen, which led to further over-fishing.There was also a typhoid scare. Typhus was a diseaselinked to polluted water and the oysters in theMedway near the towns were tested and found to becontaminated. The final straw was the bad winter of1939/40 that killed off all remaining oysters in theLower Medway. Although the river seems cleanertoday than in the days when the river was full ofoysters, it looks as though they have gone for good.

Dragging for smelt

The smelt is a streamlined green and silver fish fromthe salmon family. It grows to about 25-30 cm long andhas rows of sharp teeth that it uses to prey on smallerfish. It spends half the year in the sea. Then in the earlydays of autumn large shoals of smelt appear in riverestuaries, making their way slowly upstream to lay eggs,or spawn. This was the high season of Medway fishing.

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuriesthe smelt was a much-prized fish for eating. Medwaysmelt were thought to be especially good and therewas plenty of money to be made for fishermen on theriver during this period. However, it was often difficultto guess when the fish would appear and some yearsthey didn’t come at all. Even today, no one is reallysure why they have stopped visiting the Medway.

As usual, catching the fish needed lots of carefulplanning. The first few smelt would appear in the lowerestuary in August and by February thousands of fish

would be spread out right up to the Hawkwood stone.Then they would make their way back down again,after spawning. Autumn and winter would see crewsfishing between Chatham and Strood; for the earlyspring, the boats would move above Rochester Bridge.

Smelt could be caught only where the water was still,in an angle of the riverbank, or where an obstructioncreated a calm pool. These spots were known asshoots and each one had its own name. The state ofthe tide was also very important and usually fishingcould only begin within two hours of the turn. Beforethe correct time, fishing crews would line up in theirdobles, waiting to take turns at dragging the shoot.

Dragnetting needed two men, one in the doble and oneashore. The boatman rowed out into the stream,Rochester oyster seller, c1890

Vendeuse d’huîtres à Rochester, vers 1890

Oesterverkoopster uit Rochester, ±1890

Admiralty Court in session: River Medway 1963

Séance du Tribunal de l’Amirauté : Rivière Medway, 1963

Admiralty Court in zitting: rivier de Medway 1963

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dragging the net around the shoot as he went, while theman on the shore would hold the other end. Leadweights stretched the bottom of the net down into thewater and corks kept its top afloat. The man controllingthe doble would then head back into the bank andmeet the man ashore, so pulling the net round in acircle. Both men would then work from the riverbank,drawing the net in and tipping the fish into the boat.

In the spring, teams of fishermen would moor up theirbawleys among the shoots at Cuxton, Halling andBurham and sleep on them for a month or two, usingdobles to do the actual fishing. A ma n could makearound £40 a week during a good season in this way,which was a great deal of money in those days. Oncecaught, the smelt were boxed up and sent by rail toLondon, where they were sold in Billingsgate Market.

Who were the fishermen?

Up until very recently fishing in the River Medway wasmainly a job for men. This was because only men couldjoin the official organisation, which meant becoming afreeman of the fishery and having the right to take fishout of the river. Private companies, when they wereallowed to fish, did sometimes employ women.

For at least the last two centuries, the only route tobecoming a freeman has been to serve anapprenticeship for seven years in the company ofsomeone who is already a member of the fishery.Apprentices did not get paid but they were fed, givensomewhere to live and would learn all they needed toset up in business on their own. Sometimes masterswould give their apprentices pocket money, or allowthem to collect and sell the crabs that turned up inthe catch. If he could, a good master would do his best

to help the apprentice buy a doble and net at the endof his service.

The fishing community on the Medway was not a largeone and many local families knew each other well. They would do their best to help when children wereborn, or family members were ill, or the catch waspoor, or equipment broke down. The fishermenthemselves usually did away with proper names andknew each other by nickname only. So, in Medway inthe early 1900s, you might have bumped into Squeaker,Whistler, Toggie, Tomato Joe, Curly, Bluey, or Scratch; oreven Deerfoot, Beeswing or Bear.

There was no pension before the Second World Warand fishing was a hard job. A pension fund was set upfrom the money paid to the fishery by the cementfactories, when their workers began digging up theriverbanks. This fund was used to support olderfishermen or their widows, especially at Christmas,when the Rochester Fishery would meet to decidehow to give it out.

Danger!The river at any time can be dangerous. However, fishingall year round, especially at night, could be very risky.Accidents did happen and sometimes men were killed.

A man called John Hill had a lucky escape on 31 July1896. He was fishing in his bawley boat, Jubilee, with hisson Ernest, in deep water at Sheerness. They had just letthe heavy trawl net run over the side and it was sinkingfast as it stretched out towards the bottom. A momentof carelessness meant that suddenly John found his footcaught in the line and he was pulled over the side anddragged under the water. Ernest had a choice. Shouldhe stop the net and begin to take it in? This would pullhis father back to the surface, but it would take a longtime. Or should he leave the net running, and hope thatonce it hit the bottom, his father would be able to freehimself and swim away? Ernest decided to wait.Meanwhile, another son, Charles, had seen the accidentand was rowing over from another bawley. At last Johnmanaged to get free and he rose to the surface.Immediately Charles jumped in to help his exhaustedfather stay afloat until both men were rescued. Johnmade a full recovery but he never fished again. Charles not only continued as a fisherman, he even

carried on rescuing people. Hereceived a medal in 1903 for saving

the life of a man called RichardNewington who had fallen intothe Medway.

Hill familly shrimping on a bawley boat in 1935

La famille Hill en train de pêcher des crevettes sur unbateau « bawley » en 1935

De familie Hill op garnalenvangst in een bawley-bootin 1935

Lifesaving medal awarded toCharles Hill in 1903

Médaille de sauveteur attribuéeà Charles Hill en 1903

Reddingsmedaille uitgereikt aanCharles Hill in 1903

Bringing oysters ashore: 1822

Déchargement des huîtres surla grève : 1822

De oestervangst wordt aanwal gebracht: 1822

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What kind of ships and boats werebuilt on the River Medway?

Most of the vessels built on the River Medway can bedivided into four types:

• ships built in the Royal Dockyard at Chatham;• ships built by private companies;• barges;• fishing boats.

All of this work depended heavily on what washappening in the rest of the world. Countries needlots of warships if they are involved in a war, or needto look like they are ready for a war. Barges are onlyrequired if there are products nearby, like bricks andcement, that have to be delivered. Fishing boats are nouse if the river is not full of fish.

Linked to shipbuilding was the business of repairingand refitting ships, which can be almost as much workas building one, especially if the ship has been damagedby battle or heavy use at sea.

How did shipbuilding begin on theRiver Medway?

During the reign of Henry VIII the navy began to keepits large warships in the River Medway nearGillingham, because it was a fairly safe place to anchorthem when they were not needed. This was wherethey could be checked over and repaired, loaded withstores and generally made ready for the sea. Buildingsin Gillingham were rented to store everything thatwas necessary to keep the ships in good order. In1550, King Henry ordered that all his warships that

were not in the harbour at Portsmouth should bekept in the Medway off Gillingham.

Queen Elizabeth I named the nearby Chatham yard asa Royal Dockyard in 1567. Its first recorded ship wasthe Sunne, launched in 1586. This Dockyard began at aplace now known as Gun Wharf but in 1619 moved toits present site. In a short space of time dry docks, aropery, officers’ houses, a sail loft and stores were alsobuilt. In a few years it was the busiest in the countryand one of the wonders of industrial Britain. When thewriter Daniel Defoe saw it, he thought it wasmonstrously great and extensive.

4Ship and boat building

Chatham Dockyard in 1793, at the start ofthe Napoleonic Wars

Chantier naval de Chatham en 1793, au début des guerres napoléoniennes

De scheepswerf van Chatham in 1793, aan het begin van Napoleontische Oorlogen

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The building-yards, docks, timber-yards, deal yard, mastyard, gun yard, rope walks, and all other yards and placesset apart for the works belonging to the navy, are like awell-ordered city.

Among the many vessels built at Chatham Dockyardwere Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory, which stillsurvives at Portsmouth, and HMS Unicorn, launched in1824, which can be seen in Dundee.

Between 1862 and 1885, the British governmentdecided to concentrate its resources on Chatham andclosed the yards at Deptford and Woolwich. As aresult the Chatham Dockyard grew very quickly.Enormous basins were built to deal with the newVictorian iron-built battleships. The basins can still beseen between Chatham and St Mary’s Island.

During the twentieth century a new type of boat wasbuilt at Chatham. This was the submarine. In fact thefinal complete vessel built for the Royal Navy at theDockyard was a submarine, the Ocelot, which waslaunched in 1962. Shortly afterwards the yard openeda special refitting centre for submarines powered bynuclear reactors. The Ocelot, though, returned, andwelcomes thousands of people on board each year inher old home, as Chatham Dockyard is now a popularvisitor attraction.

Where were the private shipyards?

Gillingham

There was a shipyard in Gillingham at the beginning ofthe seventeenth century, owned by a man called DavidDuck. Phineas Pett, Assistant Master Shipwright atChatham in 1604, mentions it in his autobiography.

The BellerophonEdward Greaves built the Bellerophon at Frindsburyin 1786. She carried 74 guns and was designed by thesame man who had drawn up the Victory, AdmiralNelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar. Nicknamedthe Billy Ruffian by her crews, she had one of themost amazing histories of any ship of the time.

The Bellerophon took three years to build andneeded 3,000 tons of oak, which was brought bywater from the Weald, a large forest that used tocover much of Kent. She survived a number of enemyactions, including the Battle of the Nile, before beinginvolved at Trafalgar. Here her crew fought off aboarding attack from the French ship L’Aigle (The Eagle), during which her captain was killed. Then in 1815, when the French Emperor Napoleonsurrendered, the Bellerophon was responsible forbringing him back to Britain. She ended her days byreturning to the River Medway, fitted out as a prisonhulk and moored off Sheerness.

HMS Bellerophon 1815

Le navire: HMS Bellerophon 1815

De HMS ‘Bellerophon’ in 1815

Pett used it privately to build his own ship, theResistance, which he then hired out to the king as atransport. Pett, though, got himself into troublebecause he used material meant for the Chatham yardfor his own private business. Being caught did not dohim much harm and he ended his career asCommissioner of the Navy at Chatham.

The Muddle family set up a yard at Gillingham in theeighteenth century. They were involved in building and

HMS Victory Le navire: HMS Victory

De HMS ‘Victory’

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repairing ships there until the 1850s. In 1808 theMuddle yard took on its biggest challenge with acommission to build the Opossum for the navy, a ten-gun vessel known as a brig. The family completed thework on time and, once launched, she was towed toChatham to be completed in the Royal Dockyard.

Frindsbury

Britain was involved in a series of wars from themiddle of the eighteenth century up until 1815. This gave a great boost to the shipbuilding industry onthe Medway. So many warships were needed that thegovernment dockyards could not build enough.A number of new private companies set up in businessalong the river at Frindsbury, to provide the navy withthe ships it needed. The contract for payment anddelivery was agreed before the work began.

The Frindsbury yards built almost all sizes of warship,apart from the very largest. Josiah and ThomasBrindley established a yard atFrindsbury and launched their firstnaval ship in 1794. They grew quicklyas the orders came in for more. In the end they ran three separateyards, making them the largestprivate shipbuilders on the Medway.They employed over 50 shipwrightsand apprentices.

Mrs Mary Ross, shipbuilderCharles Ross built his first ship for the navy at hisyard on Acorn Wharf, Rochester, in 1791. He wenton to build several others very successfully. In 1808 he died, leaving behind his wife Mary, sevenchildren and a business under agreement with theRoyal Navy to produce two large warships.

Normally at this time Mary would have beenexpected either to see that the control of theyard was handed over to her eldest son, or toemploy another man to run it for her, or to sellthe business outright. Because her sons were stillonly children, she decided to keep the wholething going herself. This she did, very successfully.Running a yard was not a simple matter.An owner needed to employ large numbers ofpeople for a long period of time before receivingfinal payment. Buying the right amount ofmaterials at the right time was tricky. But underMary’s control, the yard finished the two warshipsalready underway and built five others for thenavy before the war ended.

Mary and her family lived on Acorn Wharf, next tothe yard. As her sons grew up, the war came to an end and they looked for work elsewhere. One became a farmer and one a brewer inLondon. Mary eventually closed the yard andmoved to London too, where she died in 1847.

Mary Ross

Mary Ross

Mary Ross

Second prize trophy for the 1875barge sailing match

Trophée du second prix de la coursede péniches à voiles de1875

Beker voor de tweede prijs in dezeilwedstrijd in 1875

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However, Brindley’s was not alone. In just one year,1808, the private yards on the Medway wereresponsible for launching 10 warships along the shortstretch of the river from Frindsbury to Upnor. In totalthe private yards built 70 ships for the Royal Navybetween 1793 and 1815, a time when ChathamDockyard built only 14. This was probably because thegovernment yards were in charge of repairing andrefitting warships, which took up most of their time.After the end of the war the navy stopped paying forships and the private yards could not survive.Brindley’s launched their last ship in 1814 and by 1820they too had closed.

Barge building

This was an industry that relied almost entirely on thework done in the brick fields and the cementfactories. The owners of these companies would onlymake money if they could get their products to placeswhere people wanted them. Medway barges were theanswer. They were specially designed to move up anddown the river safely, using the free power providedby the wind. In the 1880s and 1890s more than 100barges a day were coming and going along the Medwayestuary on every tide.

There were barge builders all along the Lower Medway.Most simply worked directly on the bank as it slopeddown to the river. There would be a sawpit where thetimbers would be cut. Stem and stern posts, spars andmasts would be shaped with an adze. A water boilerwas essential to make steam that would soften theplanks of wood so that they could be shaped. Bargebuilders rarely used plans or drawings. The shipwrightswere very skilled and usually worked by eye – just withguesses made accurate through practice.

Curel’s yardCurel’s was one of the oldest of the local barge-buildingfirms. They launched their first barge, John, in 1841 andgrew quickly along the river bank at Strood andFrindsbury. By 1890 they had launched over 100 barges.A business directory from 1894 describes the scene:

All in and around Rochester beautiful scenery abounds…and especially in this district is the home industry of bargebuilding actively sustained. Mr Curel’s yard is one of theriver points at which great activity prevails in this line. A large stock of sound, well seasoned English timber is

always to hand, and to give a vague idea of themagnitude of the work and the size of the spars used, it may be stated that we saw one which measured threefeet in circumference at the butt, was ninety-two feet inlength, and two feet square at the top. Then too…a largenumber of experienced men are employed, so that orderscan at all times be promptly taken in hand andcompleted without delay. All the hands in the yardappeared to be occupied with their work to the fullestextent, but although exceedingly busy laying down thekeel of a new barge, the organising arrangements of theplace are so good that perfect order reigns supreme, andnothing like confusion can be noticed in any department.

Barges on the Medway Péniches sur la rivière Medway Schepen op de Medway

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Medway barges were built mainly for local owners.Some of those owners would be single captains whowould hire out their services. Some would be the bigfactories that soon built up large fleets and employedmen to sail them.

A good Medway barge was flat-bottomed with a holdlarge enough to carry 100 tons of mud or cement. It was narrow with rounded bows. It would have amast and rigging that could fold down so that thewhole craft could squeeze under Rochester Bridge.This process was called huffling and the barge captainwould pick up a huffler as he approached the bridge.This was an extra crew member specially taken onjust to help lower and raise the mast. Some bargeswere built to compete in popular races that were heldevery year for expensive silver trophies.

Many Medway barges were so well built that theylasted for 40 or 50 years. This meant that the bargebuilders relied on the cement industry to keep gettingbigger for them to carry on working. Once thefactories began to close in the early years of thetwentieth century, the barge-building firms quicklyfollowed. Very few Medway barges are left today.

Fishing boats

Two kinds of fishing boats were popular on the RiverMedway up until the Second World War, dobles and

bawleys. They were first made with sails, althoughmany later had engines added. Very few are left today.

Dobles are easy to recognise because they areusually pointed at both ends, at the bow and at thestern. The word doble probably comes from the factthat the boat is double-ended. Dobles were nevermore than about 5 or 6 meters long and 2 metreswide. They were built of oak planks (sometimes elm)fixed over heavy ‘ribs’ that gave the boat its shape.They could be fitted with a mast and sails, althoughwere more often seen being rowed about the fishinggrounds. This gave the fishermen fine control overthe boat’s movements, especially when the wind wasnot right.

Albert Lemon built the last Medway doble at hisboatyard in Strood in 1920. The boat cost £60complete with all its rigging and sails. It was calledFosh. The only doble left in Medway today is calledMay. It belongs to the Guildhall Museum but is ondisplay at the Historic Dockyard in Chatham.

The fishing boats known as bawleys were also built onthe River Medway. The bawley was a type of smack(traditional fishing boat), with special features addedfor fishing in the Medway. It was bigger than a doblewith a much deeper hull. It had larger, morecomplicated sails. Its tall masts could be lowered topass under Rochester Bridge as the boat made its wayupriver in search of smelt.

Medal commemorating the 1937Medway barge sailing match

Médaille commémorative de la course depéniches à voiles de Medway en 1937

Herdenkingsmedaille voor dezeilwedstrijd van 1937 op de Medway

Building a bawley boat Construction d’un bateau « bawley » Een bawley-boot in aanbouw

Main gate, Chatham Dockyard

Chantier naval de Chatham,porte principale

Hoofdingang van de scheepswerfin Chatham

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Why are rivers important to industry?

Industry is the general name given to what people doto earn a living. It often means making things. Thereare several reasons why people have chosen to makethings by rivers.

1. Rivers are a source of power

The best kind of river for turning a water wheel topower a mill is a small one that flows quickly.TheLower Medway is big and slow. This is why most ofthe mills there either:

• used streams that flowed into it (Snodland); • used the tide (Strood);• or used steam engines, such as many later mills.

2. Rivers are a good way of moving materials

Even after the railways were built in Victorian times,moving anything heavy a long way was very hard. The cheapest way was often by water.The MedwayTowns were easy to get to by boat and special bargeswere designed and built to do the job. Because theMedway linked with the Thames, London was only afew miles away and in London were lots of peoplewith money ready to buy things from the Medwayfactories – things like paper and bricks.

3. Rivers are full of water

Some industries use huge amounts of water forcleaning, boiling and cooling. It was often cheaper forthese companies to move to where the water was,rather than try to pipe the water in.

What is a mill?

A mill is a building that provides power to make or dothings. The type of power might be wind, water, steamor electricity. The product made might be flour, paper,

oil, cotton, glue or fertiliser. The River Medway hasbeen home to many mills but almost all of them havenow gone.

The tide mill

For many years there was a water mill in Strood. It stood where the railway bridge now meets theStrood riverbank. Behind it was a huge pond. When the tide came in, this pond filled up and a gatewas shut to keep the water in after the tide had gonedown again. Then the water was released through a

5 Industry

Strood tide mill by Richard Livesay, 1781 Moulin à marée de Strood par Richard Livesay, 1781

Getijdewatermolen bij Strood, door Richard Livesay, 1781

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special channel that took it under a large woodenwheel. As the water rushed back into the river, itturned the wheel. The wheel was connected to a pairof millstones that ground wheat into flour.

The pond was dangerous. There were no street lightsin those days and the small wooden bridge across thewater channel would have been pitch black at night.At least two people are known to have drowned in it.In Victorian times new mills were built nearby thatused steam engines, which could run all day and allnight if necessary. The tide could only be used twice aday. These new mills were used to grind seeds to makelinseed oil for paint and feed for farm animals. Longafter the water mill had gone, its site was used forloading and unloading barges and it was calledWatermill Wharf.

The Snodland paper mill

There have been mills in Snodland for a very longtime. There are three recorded in the DomesdayBook, which was written almost 1,000 years ago. In the middle of the eighteenth century one of thesemills was being used to make paper and there is still amill in Snodland today.

Up until the end of Victorian times paper was madeout of old rags. A good supply of water was alsoneeded. In the Snodland mill a stream ran a waterwheel which helped to chop up the rags. The samewater was used to clean the pulp before it waspressed into sheets of paper; and the water in theMedway was important because boats were used tobring in huge amounts of rags. In the early 1800ssteam engines were added to the mill because a singlewater wheel could not provide enough power.

As the paper mill grew, Snodland grew with it, veryquickly.Today very little paper is made in the UK andthe papermaking department at Snodland closed in2006. In 2010 the mill was still producing packagingmaterials and board.

What were the first importantindustries to use the river Medway?

Salt

Before fridges and freezers were invented, salt wasvery important because meat and fish packed in itcould last for a long time. During the winter, or on along trip by sea, heavily salted food is all many peoplewould have to eat. Before the middle of the eighteenth

century most salt made in Britain came from boiledseawater. Huge pans were filled with water and heatedup. The water boiled off and the salt remained.

There were two salt works on the Isle of Grain andthey gave their name to this part of the river, whichwas known as Saltpan Reach. These works were in agood position to take salt water out of the Medwayand to receive the fuel needed to heat it up. This fuel was wood at first but later changed to coalthat came down by sea from the north of England.

By the 1700s most sea salt makers were going out ofbusiness. Salt had been discovered in the ground inCheshire and mining it was much cheaper than payingfor the coal to boil the salt pans.

Copperas

Copperas was used as a dye in making clothes, hatsand ink. It was made from iron pyrites, which are shinycoloured stones. They could be picked up off manybeaches in Kent, especially on the Isle of Sheppey. The stones were collected and stored. The liquid thatran off the stones was boiled until only crystals ofcopperas were left.

There were two copperas works on the RiverMedway, one at Queenborough on Sheppey and one atGillingham, which was in those days just a small village.The works at Gillingham have nevertheless left theirmark on the area. The stretch of mud and reeds nearthe Strand is still known as Copperhouse Marshes andcan be found on the Ordnance Survey map.

The copperas industry on the River Medway was notable to compete with other works that were set up

Snodland paper mill and ferry by Stanley Badmin, 1933

Moulin à papier et ferry à Snodland, par StanleyBadmin, 1933

Papiermolen en veerboot in Snodland, door StanleyBadmin, 1933

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near the coalfields in the north of England. It was justtoo expensive to bring all the fuel down to Kent. By the beginning of Victorian times the Medway workswere closed.

Lime

There is lots of chalk in north Kent. So much has beendug out of the ground for various uses that the shapeof many parts of the county has been completelychanged. Bluewater, one of the largest indoor shoppingcentres in Europe, sits in a huge old chalk pit.

Lime is made from chalk by heating it up in a specialoven called a kiln. For hundreds of years farmers haveused lime as a fertiliser, to make crops grow better. It is also useful for the mortar that helps bricks stick

GillinghamGillingham followed close behind London in the raceto grow bigger. As London slowed down in laterVictorian times, Gillingham speeded up. By the timeQueen Victoria died in 1901, the old village hadgrown to 10 times its original size. It swallowed upBrompton, all the farms and fields around it andofficially became a town in 1903, when the Boroughof Gillingham was formed.

Gillingham grew so quickly because the Dockyardneeded workers and the workers needed houses.There was also plenty of brick earth around. Local men and women found new work as they joinedthe brick making gangs working for the companies whohad bought the land. The old farms were dug up tomake the bricks and then the brick fields themselvesdisappeared under new houses. The farm names canstill be found on any street map of Gillingham today:Barnsole, Westcourt, Britton and Upbury.Gillingham brick making team

Equipe de fabrication de briques de Gillingham

Een groep steenbakkers in Gillingham

Lime kilns in Luton: detail, by Charles Spencelayh, 1905

Fours à chaux de Luton : détail, par Charles Spencelayh,1905

Kalkovens in Luton (detail) door Charles Spencelayh, 1905

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together, and in whitewash. The lime-burning industrycame to the River Medway for the same reasons asthe copperas makers and the salt pan workers: Theraw material was there (the chalk) and the river wasthere to bring in the coal and take out the finishedproduct (the lime).

By the beginning of the 1800s there were lime kilns atChatham, Frindsbury, Borstal, Wouldham, Burham,Cuxton and Halling. At this time these businesseswould have been fairly small, employing just a fewpeople to dig out the chalk and watch over the kiln,which burnt night and day.

Why did industries on the Medwaychange?

The Industrial Revolution brought a new way of life topeople in Britain. This is the name given to a number ofchanges that started to take place at the beginning ofthe nineteenth century. These changes were mostlybrought about by new technology based on theinvention and improvement of the steam engine. Steam-powered machines were made that could do thejob of dozens, or even hundreds of people, in farming,weaving, printing and other industries. As factories gotbigger, people moved their families from thecountryside to the towns to get jobs. Towns and citiesgrew very fast. This meant more demand for some ofthe things that the Medway industries could provide.

The Industrial Revolution did not affect all industriesin the same way. Some, like the copperas works and salt pans, disappeared. Some, like brick making,grew incredibly fast. Others, like cement production,were new.

Brick making

Bricks are a building material moulded out of a specialkind of clay known as brick earth. There is lots of brickearth in north Kent. There is so much in fact, thatanyone building a house in the area could usually starttheir own brickfield nearby and make all the bricksthey needed there and then. This was a good idea, asbricks were heavy and awkward to move very far.

Once moulded the bricks were baked in heaps byusing coal mixed with ash and rubbish to stop the firegetting too hot. Medway bricks were usually yellowonce ready for use. In the eighteenth century the areanear the river began to be covered with brickfields to

supply local builders. Some companies also sent theirbricks down the river to Chatham Dockyard, whichbegan to grow at this time.

The real change for brick making in Medway camewith the sudden growth of London in the earlynineteenth century. In 1801 about a million peoplelived in the city. By 1851, there were more than two-and-a-half million. This meant huge numbers of newbuildings and enormous numbers of bricks – not justfor homes but for docks, warehouses, railway bridgesand factories. The Medway brick makers suddenlyfound themselves on the doorstep of a huge marketfor their products.

Gillingham cement works, 1905 Cimenterie de Gillingham, 1905 Cementfabriek in Gillingham, 1905

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The muddiesOne of the strange things about the cement industryis that, although in some ways it was very modern, it relied on old-fashioned ways of working. The newbusinesses would have got nowhere without the gangsof local men, out in all weathers, who dug up rawmaterials with simple hand tools. Chalk was struck outstraight from the cliff face. Men would tie themselvesto a post at the top with a long line, and letthemselves down over the edge, digging away at thehill as they went. The chalk slid down to the bottom of the cliff where it was collected and run into thefactory on carts or trucks. Collecting the mud wasmore difficult. This was the job of the muddies.

The best mud was found in the wider estuary, betweenGillingham and the sea. Each cement factory wouldemploy teams of muddies from the villages near themud holes at Hoo and Stoke. The holes were carefullychosen by the muddies in charge, who were known totaste the mud to check it was the best quality.

Each team of muddies would meet the cementbarges at the mud hole, as the tide was going out. The barge would be moored close to the bank.As the water fell away the barge would sit on themud. The muddies then began to work as fast asthey could, to load it up with blocks of mud beforethe tide came in again and floated the barge off.

They stood on the bank beside the barge and cut intothe mud with a special iron-tipped spade called a flytool. They would then throw the block up and overthe side of the barge so that it landed down in thehold. The very best teams could fill two barges pertide and would be paid about 35 shillings for each one.This would give each man about twice the wage of afarm worker at the same time. Altogether themuddies were responsible for digging out an incrediblefour million tons of mud over the life of the cementindustry on the Medway.

A way of moving the bricks was nearby too. Medway boat builders responded to the housingboom by producing hundreds of barges. These tookthe bricks down the Medway and up the RiverThames to London. Then back they came with areturn load of material known as rough stuff – coal,ashes and household rubbish of all sorts to burn inthe brick kilns.

By 1847, 21 separate brick makers were known to beworking along the Lower Medway. There were six justat Frindsbury. Here the Manor Farm brickfield wasperhaps, in the 1840s, one of the most important sitesin the whole country. As the brick earth ran out, themakers would simply move to another source nearby.Slowly the raw material at Frindsbury, Strood andGillingham was eaten up and turned into millions andmillions of bricks.

Cement

If brick making was the busiest industry in the first halfof the nineteenth century, then cement production tookover in the second. By 1900, more people were workingin the cement industry in Medway than in any other.

At the start of Victorian times engineers realised theyneeded a new kind of cement. This would be a powderthat could be mixed with water to become very hard,and be immensely strong and completely waterproofwhen set. A number of manufacturers came up withan answer, which was soon called Portland cementbecause it was so smooth and hard it looked just likethe best Portland stone for building.

The first Portland cement factory appeared on theRiver Medway in 1851, at Frindsbury. Many othersfollowed. They all came for the secret ingredient

Fly tool for digging mud

Pelle en bois et fer pour extraire la boue

Zogenaamde ‘fly’-spade om modder op te graven

Crown cement works, Rochester by Douglas Smart, 1930

Cimenterie Crown à Rochester par Douglas Smart, 1930

Koninklijke cementfabriek in Rochester, door DouglasSmart, 1930

Thomas Aveling in 1908 andworking model of Avelingand Porter engine: Little Tom

Thomas Aveling, 1908 et un modèle fonctionnel de « Petit Tom », l’automobiled’Aveling & Porter

Thomas Aveling, 1908, meteen bewegend schaalmodelvan de Aveling en Porter-machine ‘Little Tom’

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build their own factories. Some were very big indeed.By 1899 Wickham Cement Works in Strood hadgrown to become one of the largest on the river. The factory employed about 800 men and produced2,000 tons of cement every week. Its wharves, whereboats could be loaded, were half a mile long.Sometimes as many as 25 barges could be spottedthere at one time, loading and unloading.

What were the most well-knowncompanies on the River Medway?

Two Medway businesses became world famous:Aveling and Porter and Short Brothers. ThomasAveling set up a repair shop in Rochester in 1851, to help local farmers maintain the new machines thatwere starting to become popular. In 1860 he moved tothe banks of the river in Strood. He started toproduce road-going steam engines that could movethemselves from place to place instead of having to be dragged by horses. With his partner, Richard Porter,he built his business up until it had become the largesttraction engine factory the world had ever seen.

Short Brothers were one of the very first aircraftmanufacturers. They moved to Rochester in 1913because they were interested in building seaplanes andwanted to use the River Medway as a runway. For morethan 30 years their flying boats were a familiar sight,tearing up and down the river between RochesterBridge and what is today the site of the M2 motorway.

During the 1920s and 1930s, as more and morepeople began to travel round the world, Short’saeroplanes were bought by airlines because they couldland in countries where there were no airports.

Each one was built in the factory on the esplanade andlaunched down a slipway into the river. Later thecompany also started to build land planes atRochester airport. During the Second World War theShort Sunderland became one of the Royal Air Force’s best-known large aircraft, sinking enemy submarinesand landing on the sea to rescue survivors.

Short Brothers closed their Rochester factory andmoved to Belfast in 1948.

Where have all the Medway industries gone?

The world has changed since the River Medway washome to so many industries.

Growth

The biggest Medway industries relied on London andthe demand created by the huge number of housesbuilt there in the Victorian period. The River Medwaywas nearby at a time when moving large amounts ofheavy materials was difficult and expensive. So the

Model of Short Singapore

Maquette du « Singapore » des frères Short

Schaalmodel van een ‘Short Singapore’

needed for this new cement – Medway mud. Whenthis was mixed with chalk and heated up in huge kilnsit would dry into lumps that could then be groundinto powder. In the 1850s and 1860s, before similarmud was found elsewhere, the River Medway wassupplying the whole world with Portland cement.

The lime-burning companies already working in thechalk pits saw that going into the cement businesswould make them more money and they started to

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another business just because they were based downthe road are long gone. Some Medway industriesfound that they could not produce their goods cheaplyenough to compete with other companies elsewhere.

Raw materials

Many Medway industries were based on using up largeamounts of local materials: chalk, mud, brick earth andtimber. As these were used up they became harder andmore expensive to find. By the beginning of thetwentieth century, Medway was starting to get quitecrowded and there was not the same room to cut holesand dig away at the cliffs. Raw materials from otherplaces, and even other countries, were used instead.

Medway companies had a big advantage. After thistime there were long periods of quiet in the buildingindustry and a low demand for materials. Althoughlots of homes are once again being built in the south-east of England, today the world’s fastest-growingareas are no longer in the UK.

Competition

Today, bricks, cement and all kinds of other things canbe moved around the world relatively cheaply. No onethinks twice about buying something from Taiwan andexpecting it to arrive at their house a week later. Thiskind of shopping would have surprised the Victorians.The days when a factory owner would work with

Famous MedwayThe cement industry on the Medway became famous. A travel book, written in 1905, describes thescene at Strood:

Wherever chalk appears near the water there will befound the tall chimneys and jetties and tramways of thecement works; but the biggest quarries of all are on theMedway where men are rapidly changing the surface ofthe country, boring great gaps and tunnels into the Downs,carrying away hills, and covering the neighbourhood withan impalpable white powder. Through the smoke rises theNorman Keep of Rochester.

At intervals cement works have driven cuttings into theDowns, leaving tall white cliffs. The still air is heavy with thesuspended smoke belched from countless chimneys.

The noise is deafening. Along the shore are barge-builders,slipways and engineers; and there is a forest of chimneyson the north bank… Grey men are loading barges withgrey bags. The throb of machinery is everywhere.

Cement factories, Frindsbury by Irwin Bevan

Cimenteries à Frindsbury par Irwin Bevan

Cementfabrieken in Frindsbury, door Irwin BevanStrood dock workers, 1905 Dockers à Strood, 1905 Dokwerkers in Strood, 1905

Pastel drawing of a Short Sunderland flying overRochester by A Rogers

Pastel signé A Rogers représentant un avion «Sunderland » des frères Short survolant Rochester

Pasteltekening van een ‘Short Sunderland’,vliegend over Rochester, door A Rogers

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What were the hulks?

‘Hulk’ is a word often used to describe any broken-down ship that is no longer used. ‘The hulks’ was thegeneral name given to prison ships that could befound, especially in England, from the end of theeighteenth century to the middle of the nineteenth.They were moored on rivers and in harbours likethose at Plymouth and Portsmouth, and on theMedway off Chatham and Sheerness. There were twokinds: those used for prisoners of war (POWs) andthose used for criminals.

Why were hulks used?

The government in Britain used prison hulks becausethey were supposed to be cheap. It was much fasterand simpler to get an old ship ready to take prisonerson board than to build a brand new prison. Two thingsmeant that there was a sudden growth in the numberof people put in prison in Britain.

1. War

Britain fought a war with France and other countriesbetween 1793 and 1815. There were also wars withAmerica and Denmark around this time. Many foreignsoldiers were captured and brought to Britain. Some

French officers were trusted not to return to theirown country and lived with local people in their ownhouses. Most ordinary soldiers were kept in prisoncamps or on prison hulks.

2. American independence

For hundreds of years, most of North America was aBritish colony. This meant that the law courts inBritain were able to send criminals to work in labourcamps or on huge farms in what is now the UnitedStates of America. This punishment was called

transportation. In 1776 people in America foughtagainst the British, won their independence, formedtheir own government and transportation there cameto an end. The courts in Britain began to sentencemore and more people to prison instead and soonextra space was needed.The first convict hulks wereset up at Woolwich on the River Thames.

In 1787 transportation started again, this time toanother British colony: Australia. The hulks were stillused to hold prisoners while they waited for a ship to

6The hulks

Hulks on the Medway Pontons-prisons dits « hulks » sur la Medway Hulken op de Medway

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take them on the seven-month journey to the otherside of the world. In the early 1800s the first convictprison ships appeared on the River Medway, atSheerness and then at Chatham.

What did the hulks look like?

Prisoners of war hulks

Fighting ships, often called men o’ war, were usuallybrightly painted so that sailors could tell friendly shipsfrom enemy ones in the middle of a battle. Prisonhulks were dull and dirty. After the war a French

captain, Charles Dupin, wrote a report for hisgovernment in which he said that they looked like the remains of vessels blackened by a recent fire.

If a ship was retired from fighting it might be used as aprison hulk. Everything that might get in the way ofsqueezing in more prisoners was removed. Guns,anchors, cables, masts, rigging and many bulkheads, orwalls, were taken away. Huts were added for guards onthe top deck. Bars were nailed across the gun ports. A walkway was usually built around the outside of theship, just above the water, to allow patrols to inspect

Escape!Wherever there were prison hulks, there wereescapes. Thanks to an American POW called BenjaminWaterhouse, who had been captured by the British inthe war of 1812, we know about some at Chatham.Benjamin published his memories of life on the CrownPrince hulk in 1816. He wrote that during one escape16 men managed to get away through a hole dugstraight through the hull of the ship, just above thewaterline. But perhaps the most daring escape attempthe ever heard about was by four Americans on theIrresistible. They noticed that only one soldier guardedthe jolly boat, which was used for going backwards andforwards from the hulk to the shore. Theyoverpowered him and began to row for the mud bank,while musket fire poured down at them from all sides.One prisoner was injured, but the other three made itto the shore and ran for it, chased by British soldiers,and soon half the population of Chatham. They werecaught one-by-one, the final prisoner breaking his anklewhen jumping a fence and so forced to surrender. They were taken back to the Irresistible amid rousingcheers from hulks up and down the River Medway.

Replica irons like those used on the hulks for convicts

Reproduction des fers utilisés sur les condamnés des pontons-prisons

Replica van boeien die op de hulken gebruikt werden voor gevangenen

Top deck of a prison hulk, as displayed in the Guildhall Museum

Pont supérieur d’un ponton-prison, exposé au Musée du « Guildhall »

Bovendek van een gevangenisschip, te zien in het Guildhall-museum

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WorkThe prison ships had been set up in the first place atWoolwich, so that convicts were near places where acheap workforce was needed. Throughout theirhistory the hulks were often linked to hard labour,whether that was clearing the riverbanks, working inthe dockyards or unpicking old rope on board. Theconvicts’ work was often designed to be as pointlessand dull as possible. POWs, on the other hand, wereable to try all sorts of ways to make money. Theytaught dancing, languages, mathematics and navigation;and they made things. Many POWs discovered thatthere was a new demand in England for the attractivethings they could build out of the simplest materialssuch as bone, straw and hair. They made boxes, gamingcounters and dominoes; toys and moving figures;bonnets and paintings. The POW camps on land hadworkshops and large market places where theseproducts could be sold to the local population. Eventhe hulks would have seen traders come on board tobuy and sell or exchange items with the prisoners.Many of the objects bought were so valued that theywere kept for many years and have ended up inmuseum collections.

A domino set made by Napoleonic POWs

Un jeu de dominos réalisé par des prisonniersdes guerres napoléoniennes

Een dominospel gemaakt door Napoleontischekrijgsgevangenen

Bone ship model made by POWs

Maquette de bateau en os réalisée par lesprisonniers de guerre

Benen scheepsmodel gemaakt door krijgsgevangenen

A working model of a woman spinning dressed intraditional Norman costume

Maquette articulée d’une femme filant au rouet encostume normand traditionnel

Een bewegend schaalmodel van een spinnende vrouwin traditionele Normandische klederdracht

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the prisoners without going inside. Seven hundred ormore prisoners might live on the ship, on all the lowerdecks, sleeping in hammocks that were packed awayduring the day. Between 1793 and 1815, 23 ships wereused as POW prison hulks at Chatham.

Convict Hulks

Although the Medway hulks for criminals would havelooked much the same as the POW hulks from theoutside, inside they were rather different. The firsthulks at Woolwich had put all prisoners togetherwithout separating them according to the seriousnessof their crimes. By the time the convict hulks appearedon the Medway in the early 1800s, most had beendivided into a number of smaller rooms or wards.Prisoners were split up according to their crimes andhow well they behaved. There were workshops onboard, sick rooms and on some hulks even a school toteach prisoners how to read and write.

What was it like living on a hulk?

Life on a hulk was cramped, filthy and dangerous.Prisoners were unhealthy, miserable, bored, oftenstarving and sometimes abused by their guards. Theirbodies might be covered with lice and fleas. Despitebeing in sight and almost within reach of thousands ofpeople going about their business in the Medway Towns,most prisoners were almost completely cut off from theoutside world. Just how uncomfortable life might bevaried. Money could buy better living conditions.

At least one man was unlucky enough to be held inboth a POW and a convict hulk. This was JorgenJorgensen, a Danish sailor who had been taken prisonerbecause of a war between Britain and Denmark that

began in 1801. He was held for a time in a hulk atChatham. Danish prisoners, especially, were known fororganising themselves into small communities and doingtheir best to improve their conditions. They ran theirown law courts (with punishments), schools and clubs.They had newspapers delivered, told each other storiesand made things to sell.

Going on board

All POWs were given a prison uniform when they werefirst taken on board. It was usually a mustard yellowcolour and was marked with the arrow which stood forgovernment property. Each man was given a hat ofrough wool and shoes made of canvas with woodensoles. Most prisoners hated this uniform and would, ifthey could, wear something else that they had eithermade themselves or paid another prisoner to make.The yellow material was always carefully saved andeither given to the poorest inmates or sold back to theguards who had given it to them. This money could bespent to buy a better bed in the hulk from anotherprisoner, perhaps one nearer the fresh air.

In 1825, many years after his release as a POW, JorgenJorgensen was sentenced by an English court to betransported to Tasmania for life. This meant he had toreturn to the hulks – as a convict. Once on board, hisown clothes were removed, he was scrubbed cleanwith a stiff brush, and given a prison uniform, like hisold POW clothes, but half yellow, half blue or black.All his hair was cut off. He was then taken to ablacksmith who fixed irons on his legs. These werechains that joined his ankles together, leaving himenough room to walk but not to stretch out his legsand run. The chain was attached to a leather strap thathung around his waist so that it did not drag on the

The memorialLarge numbers of POWs diedwhile on board the hulks atChatham. They were quicklyburied nearby, on the marshesat St Mary’s Island. Some timeafter the end of the war, a memorial was built andset up to mark the placewhere their bodies lay. In 1904, when plans toextend ChathamDockyard outlined theneed to build over thegraveyard, theprisoners’ bodies weredug up and removed to a site next to St George’s Church. The memorial wasmoved too and it stillstands there today. In 1991, duringpreparations for thebuilding of largenumbers of houseson St Mary’s Island,yet more bodieswere discovered.They were alsotaken and re-buriedat St George’s.

The POW memorial,Chatham

Le mémorial desprisonniers de guerre,Chatham

Hetkrijgsgevangenenmonument in Chatham

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ground. Jorgen had to hand over everything that heowned. It was up to the Captain of the Hulk to decidewhether he got any of it back. When writing hismemories down many years later Jorgen noted thatwhenever a government inspector came to visit thehulk the ship was carefully prepared and prisonerswere warned not to complain.

Who was in charge?

The first hulks were managed by a businessman,Duncan Campbell, who was paid a certain amount ofmoney for every convict on board. The less money hespent on the prisoners, the more he had for himself.By 1802, both POW and convict hulks were lookedafter by men appointed by the British Government.

The captains of the POW hulks were officers from theRoyal Navy. They had to have served at least ten yearswith a good record to be considered for the

appointment. The post was very popular among oldersailors who might have been injured in battle and werelooking for a safer job within the Navy, which wouldpay them about 50 shillings a week. There was a longwaiting list. Some captains did their best to treatPOWs with kindness but there were many otherswho were lazy or bad.

At Chatham there was a Captain Milne in charge ofthe Bahama who was known to be especially brutal.He was usually drunk and would invite his friends tocome on board for parties. Once, one of these partiescaused a small fire. While his soldiers were fighting theblaze, Captain Milne gave orders that if any prisonerssaw the fire and tried to escape, they would be shot.Luckily it was soon brought under control.

Captain Milne thought that keeping the prisoners hungrywould keep them quiet. He was always cutting back onthe food that was provided for them. This idea had theopposite effect and in 1808 there was a rebellion onboard the Bahama. All the prisoners, most of themFrench, got together on the top deck and refused to gobelow until they were properly fed. Captain Milne wasfurious and ordered his soldiers to fire into the crowd.Because he was drunk, his soldiers ignored the orderand some of the French officers persuaded him that hecould not win against so many men.

The men in charge of the convict hulks were calledoverseers. It was easy for them to trick the inspectorsand many used government money for themselvesinstead of spending it on the convicts. In 1832 therewas an investigation into crime and punishment andsome men who had been prisoners were inverviewed. One man, who was just known as A.B., had been on a

Great ExpectationsThe writer Charles Dickens lived in Chatham when he was a boy. His father worked in the dockyard. He would have seen the hulks on the River Medway.Perhaps he also saw gangs of convicts being marchedoff the ships to their place of work. Many years laterhe moved back to the area and bought a big house inHigham. By this time he was a very famous man andthe hulks had long gone. But in 1860 he startedwriting a story that begins with a man who escapesfrom a Medway prison ship. He is re-captured andtaken back to the hulk to be transported to Australia.This story was called Great Expectations and it is stillone of Dickens’s most popular books.

Charles Dickens and illustration from Great Expectations

Charles Dickens et une illustration empruntée à son livre« De grandes espérances »

Charles Dickens en een illustratie uit ‘Great Expectations’

Detail from cover image, Brunswick prison hulk

Détail de l’image en couverture, ponton-prison le Brunswick

Detail van de omslagillustratie, het gevangenisschipBrunswick

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Medway hulk – the Retribution, at Sheerness. A.B. saidthat John Henry Capper, who was in charge of all thehulks, had an agreement with a local butcher to buybad meat for a very low price to give to the prisoners.A few good pieces would be bought at the same timeand these would be hung up for inspection, while therotten meat was cooked. He also said that while a fewgood loaves of bread were shown off to interestedvisitors, the convicts’ bread was so bad that you couldthrow it at the wall and it would stick there like clay.

Who were the convicts?

There were a maximum number of nine convicthulks on the Medway at any one time. Three were at Sheerness: • the Bellerophon• the Retribution• the Zealand

There were six at Chatham:• the Canada• the Cumberland• the Dolphin• the Euryalus• the Fortitude• the Wye

Most convicts on the Medway hulks were waiting tobe transported to Australia but they could wait foryears for a ship to take them there. Many men sent tocourt during this period feared the time spent on thehulks more than a life spent working on the other sideof the world. Women who broke the law could betransported too but there is no record of any beingsent to the hulks on the Medway. Prisoners were

sometimes moved from hulk to hulk; the Canada andthe Wye were hospital ships, positioned nearby totake convicts with contagious diseases. There was alsoalways a slight chance of being granted a pardon andlet off the punishment. The government knew that thiscould be a way of encouraging good behaviour. It wasalso used when the hulks were too overcrowded, toget rid of a number of prisoners very quickly.

Many of the registers and records kept by hulksoverseers are still stored in the National Archives inLondon. The men on each hulk were regularly linedup and counted to keep these registers up-to-date.Names, crimes and the date on which each man leftthe hulk were carefully recorded. On board theCumberland in the 1830s were men sentenced totransportation for crimes such as:

DiseaseThe POW hulks were so crowded that diseasesspread very quickly. In 1813 smallpox broke out onthe Crown Prince at Chatham. As soon as itappeared, the ship’s doctor called everyonetogether and offered them a vaccination. This iswhen a harmless type of the same disease is givento a patient on purpose to help his body fight offthe danger. Many prisoners were scared of thevaccination and many caught the disease. The hulkwas closed and no one was allowed on or off. The hospital ships were full anyway and thecaptains were worried about spreading thesmallpox. Unfortunately, the extra overcrowdingmeant that another disease, typhus, spread veryquickly. By the beginning of 1814 it had broken outon most of the hulk fleet at Chatham. The Bahamawas especially bad: 361 American prisoners hadbeen taken on board in January; by April, 84 ofthem were dead.

Box decorated with coloured straw made by POWs

Coffret orné de brins de paille colorés, fabriqué par desprisonniers de guerre

Kistje versierd met gekleurd stro, gemaakt doorkrijgsgevangenen

Smallpox virus

Virus de la variole

Pokkenvirus

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• stealing ducks; • stealing flat irons;• poaching (catching or killing animals on someoneelse’s land);

• bigamy (being married twice at the same time);• assault (attacking someone);• scribbling on a church register.

Boys

There were a lot of children in prison in the early1800s. It was not until the middle of Victorian timesthat special schools and homes were set up for youngpeople who broke the law. Boys who were caughtmore than once could be transported, which meantbeing sent to the hulks. At first they were mixed in

with adult prisoners, some of them guilty of seriouscrimes. In 1824, 350 convicts under the age of 14 werebrought together on one Medway hulk, theBellerophon, at Sheerness. This ship was divided upinto forty rooms, each of which could house eight ornine boys. In the Bellerophon they were at leastprotected from the most dangerous adult criminalsbut there were no workshops to give them somethingto do. So a year later all the boys were moved toanother ship, called the Euryalus, at Chatham. This hadthe workshops but it was smaller and more crowded.

Life on the Euryalus was extremely harsh. The boyswere beaten regularly. Any unusual misbehaviour wasfurther punished by being shut up alone and put onbread and water. Unlike adult convicts, the boys neverleft the hulk but were given the most grindingly boringand painful work to do on board. They ate mostlyweak porridge, with occasional meals of boiled beef.Perhaps most serious of all, the Euryalus had nosmall wards or cells and all boys were kepttogether. There was no control over the mostbrutal bullying and violence.

In 1835, a special government investigation waslaunched into prison life in England. The officerson the investigating team interviewed a man whohad been on the Medway hulks. He was called

Thomas Dexter and had been a shoemaker beforebeing convicted of stealing and sent to the Dolphinhulk at Chatham. The team were interested in Thomasbecause while he was a prisoner he had got a job onthe Euryalus to work as a nurse to the sick boys. One of the officers asked him if he thought the hulkhad changed any of the boys’ behaviour for the better.

He replied:I should most certainly say not; and frequently when I haveseen it in a newspaper that a judge has sentenced aboy…to the hulks, I have made the observation that was ita child of mine I would rather see him dead at my feetthan see him sent to that place.

Why did the hulks come to an end?

The POWs were sent home at the end of the war.Some POW hulks, like the Canada, were re-used forconvicts. Others were broken up. By the 1830s, theBritish government realised that the convict hulks hadnot proved as cheap to set up and run as many peoplehad hoped. The ships were old. They needed repairs.Fitting them out with proper wards in the first placewas expensive. John Henry Capper’s accounts showthat whole system, including preparing the ships,paying staff, moving prisoners and guarding them,keeping them fed and clothed and (sometimes)providing them with work, cost more than £70,000 in1831. This was almost the price of building a brandnew prison on land.

Many men and women were also beginning to work tochange the British prison system. They wanted to tryout new ideas about how to stop people frombreaking the law. Nearly all these ideas needed newbuildings to make them work. As many as 90 prisonswere built or extended in Britain during the middleyears of the Victorian period. These included one atChatham that was opened in 1852. Prison ships hadprobably disappeared from the River Medway longbefore this. The last hulk of all went up in flames atWoolwich on 14 July 1857.

Dartmoor prison, 1815

Prison de Dartmoor, 1815

Dartmoor-gevangenis, 1815

Engraving of the River Medway based on a paintingby JMW Turner, C Stanfield, 1828

Gravure de la Rivière Medway par C Stanfield,d’après une toile de JMW Turner, 1828

Gravure van de rivier de Medway, gebaseerd op eenschilderij van JMW Turner, door C Standfield, 1828

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The story of the River Medway is not just about workand wildlife and the serious business of conservation.The river has also been important for many years inthe way it gives people a chance to enjoy themselves.It is part of an environment that is ideal for manyleisure activities.

These activities include organised events and sportbut are also part of the free time spent by, or on, theriver by single people and families. It all needsmanaging, to make sure that groups of people are ableto share the same environment and facilities.Sometimes the demands of these different activitiescan come into conflict. Bird watchers and fishermengenerally like to have quiet and peaceful surroundings.Power boat racers, or hunters with guns, make noise.

Some river-based leisure activities can contributetowards the pollution of the river. Fuel, litter and evenlost or broken fishing line and weights can damage theenvironment and wildlife. The more popular an activityis, the more carefully it has to be managed. Rivers canbe extremely busy features of the landscape. Boatspassing quickly, up and down, can cause parts of theriver bank to break up and be washed away. Speedlimits are very important.

The River Medway may have a future as one of Britain’smost useful waters for leisure activities. The estuarycontains several creeks that offer calm and shelteredsailing waters, which are supported by a large number

of boatyards and marinas. Most sailing boats are unableto pass under the bridge at Rochester. However,smaller craft can reach the non-tidal water of the riverbetween Allington Lock and Tonbridge.

7 Enjoying the River Medway

Medway Regatta, Upnor, 1968 Régate sur la Medway à Upnor, 1968 Medway-regatta, Upnor, 1968

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What are the main leisure activitiespeople have enjoyed on the Medway?

There are many ways to enjoy any river but muchwill depend on the particular features of the stretchof water used. For the last two hundred years or so,the most important leisure activities on the Medwayhave been:

• swimming, both organised and general;• racing, for rowing boats and sailing barges;• fishing for fun, rather than profit;• pleasure boating.

New technologies and new fashions will produceother water-based leisure activities in the future.

Swimming

It is highly likely that people have swum and bathedin the River Medway since the very earliest times.But it was always far from ideal. It has strongcurrents, big tides, treacherous mud, lots of trafficand often floating debris, making it a challenge toeven the strongest swimmer.

These dangers were probably why a businessman set up the Rochester Bathing Establishment in June 1836.He built a pool out in the river where people couldswim in the natural water without risking the current, the mud or the fishing boats. He also made sure thatcomfortable rooms were available for changing andrelaxing. At this time bathing, a mixture of taking a bathand going for a swim, was seen as both healthy and veryfashionable. It had brought huge numbers of rich peopleto seaside towns like Brighton and had been encouragedat Gravesend on the Thames. Unfortunately, the

Rochester plan was not very successful and the placehad closed down by the mid-1860s.

Medway swimming clubs used the waters of the riveras a race course. Local men and women werechallenged to swim from Rochester Bridge to theStrand at Gillingham in the fastest possible time.Trophies, medals, certificates and sometimes cashprizes were awarded to the winners.

Even among families and occasional swimmers, thenatural waters of the river remained attractive intothe early years of the twentieth century. Diving raftsand platforms were available for public use along theriver front at Strood Pier.

In fact, there was something of a tradition of localbeach holidays in the area. Many residents could not

afford a holiday away from the Medway Towns. Familieswould spend a day on the beach at Upnor or atGillingham instead of travelling to a seaside resortsuch as Margate, Ramsgate or Broadstairs. Both adultsand children swam in the river from the beach, despitethe fact that it could be very dangerous. Peopledrowned trying to swim from one side of the river tothe other. The water could seem safe when it wasanything but.

Safe bathing facilities for all ages became more widelyavailable in the Victorian period. Mr. Cucknow, a localbaker, built the Strand Baths in Gillingham in 1894. The pool was known locally as Mr Cuckoo’s SeaWater Swimming Baths. It was 274 feet, or over 80metres, long. The Leisure Park that is now at theStrand has been a favourite outdoor attraction forMedway families for many years.

Strand Baths, Gillingham, c1930 Bains de Strand, Gillingham, vers 1930 Strandbad, Gillingham, ±1930

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Rowing

Rowing began simply as a way of getting about.A rowingboat relies only on muscle power. It does not need towait for the wind and so can travel in any direction in allkinds of weather. It is cheap and easy to use.

In Britain rowing boats became widely used as watertaxis and ferries. Two hundred years ago the bridgesthat now cross our big rivers were much lesscommon and river travel was convenient and relativelyquick. The first modern rowing races developed as aform of competition between the men who ran thesetaxi services – the watermen. On the Thames the Cityof London Guilds and Livery Companies offeredprizes for the winners.

Racing for fun, rather than money, is known asamateur sport. Amateur rowing became popular atEnglish universities towards the end of the eighteenthcentury. The first Boat Race between Oxford andCambridge university students took place in 1829 andit is still held annually.

A River Medway university race was first held in 2007between students of the University of Kent, theUniversity of Greenwich and Canterbury ChristChurch University. This race is now an importantevent in the Medway sporting year. The three teamsbattle it out for the right to call themselves Head ofthe River. The course is 2.6 kilometres long and runsbetween Cuxton and the esplanade in Rochester.Hundreds of supporters and spectators line up on theriver banks to watch the race every year. Riverconditions can sometimes be difficult with strong tidalcurrents and the occasional whirlpool.

A number of amateur rowing clubs for the generalpublic were set up in Medway during the Victorianperiod. These all joined together in 1958, to form theMedway Towns Rowing Club, which aims to providefacilities for everyone, whatever their age or ability. The club still has a boathouse on Rochester Esplanade.

Being a good waterman was one the many skills neededby the soldiers of the Corps of Royal Engineers, whomade Brompton their headquarters in 1812. They setup a number of rowing teams in the late nineteenthcentury. These teams used cutters, which weremedium-sized open boats rowed by pairs of men sittingside-by-side on benches.Annual rowing races were heldon the River Medway with the Royal Engineers

challenging the Royal Navy cutter teams.A separateRoyal Engineers Rowing Club was founded in 1950.

Barge racing

The Medway was thick with barges in the nineteenthcentury. They were the delivery lorries of the time,taking hundreds of tons of bricks and cement up toLondon and bringing back waste materials to burn inthe brick fields and the factory furnaces. There wasalways competition, with barge captains challengingeach other to races along the estuary.

Organised barge races began on the River Thames in1863. They were set up by a man called Henry Dodd,

Rescuer drowned!There is a plaque on the wall facing the riverbelow Rochester Castle, next to the esplanade.This is a memorial to a very brave man who diedin 1912, saving the life of a little girl.

His name was Percy Gordon and he was visitingRochester from London. He was with friends bythe river when they heard a group of childrenscreaming on the pier. A girl called DorothyFoster had fallen into the Medway after trying towalk along a rope by the water’s edge. Percydived in and held her up until a boat was able toget across and take her. Unfortunately, during therescue, Percy had an attack of cramp, was carriedaway by the current and drowned. His body wasfound about an hour later.

RSME rowing cup team, c1879

Equipe RSME de la coupe d’aviron, vers 1879

RSME-wedstrijdroeiteam, ±1879

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who had made a fortune out of rubbish collection andbrick making. He thought that the design of bargescould be improved if they were made to win races, as well as carry lots of cargo. He also wanted toencourage the barge captains to be proud of whatthey did. In fact, these events were so popular thatwithin a few years barge builders were launchingbarges specially designed only to win races.

All this attracted lots of interest from people workingon the River Medway. Some of the big brick and cementcompanies owned large numbers of barges, and theybegan to arrange their own races. Out of these grewthe first official open barge match on the Medway,which took place in 1880. The usual course wasbetween Gillingham and Sun Pier, in Chatham. Racingcontinued until the outbreak of war in 1914 and then,after a pause, fairly regularly until competition was againstopped, this time by the Second World War in 1939.

The fastest barges became quite well known and theowners were very proud of them. Competition wasfierce, with Sara, built by Everard’s on the Thames,winning races throughout the 1930s on the Medway.In 1955, the London and Rochester Trading Company’sbarge, Sirdar, appeared to have finally got the better ofSara and Everard’s began refitting an old barge,Veronica, to make it faster and take the title back.All this cost money. In 1963, the owners had finally had enough and withdrew their support for racing.Most of the company barges were scrapped.

Luckily, a number of private owners decided tocontinue the tradition of barge racing on the RiverMedway. Today an annual Medway Barge Matchattracts about twelve barges each year competing inthree different classes. The race covers almost thirtymiles, from Gillingham out into the estuary and backagain. Races also take place on the River Thames atGravesend, the River Blackwater at Maldon, Essex andon the River Swale at Faversham.

Fishing

The Medway and its estuary offers plenty ofchallenging fishing. Its changing habitats produce awide variety of species that can be caught at differenttimes of the year. Flounders, rockling and pouting arelanded during the late winter and early spring. Poutingare usually used as bait for hunting larger fish such asbass. Eels, sole and mullet can be caught as early asthe end of April, when the weather is warm.

Autumn is a quiet season for local fishing until theshoals of whiting appear off the north Kent coast andthen move up into the rivers. The main target for allsea anglers in the winter months is cod, although

these large fish are more often caught in the Thames,rather than the Medway, estuary.

Pleasure boating

There are a large number of sailing and cruising clubsbased on the Medway. Many different kinds of boatscan be seen on the river in spring and summer. Local marinas provide safe areas for keeping them andmoorings for house boats are also available on oralongside the river.

The Medway is a valuable resource for teachingpeople to enjoy water-based acitvities safely. The Arethusa Venture Centre at Upnor, for instance,welcomes six thousand children a year, to try out a

Paddle Steamer Medway Queen, 1963

Bateau à aubes : Medway Queen, 1963

Raderboot ‘Medway Queen’, 1963

Paddle Steamer City of Rochester, c1910

Bateau à aubes : City of Rochester, vers 1910

Raderboot ‘City of Rochester’, ±1910

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range of sporting activities including dinghy sailing,canoeing and kayaking.

It has long been possible to enjoy life on the riverwithout buying a boat. Steamers began running up anddown the Thames and Medway in the early 19thcentury. These boats allowed people to travel easily andcheaply from built-up areas to the seaside for day trips,or just to go along for the ride. A favourite local dayout was from the Medway Towns to Southend in Essex.

The New Medway Steam Packet Company introducedits own range of steamers when it was formed in1919. The most famous was the Medway Queen, builta few years later on the river Clyde in Scotland. Sheran from Strood right up until the Second World War,when she was rebuilt and used to search for mines, orfloating explosives, off the English coast. Her mostfamous adventures took place in 1940, when theBritish Army was struggling to get back from France asit was being invaded. She made seven crossings of the

The Kingswear Castle

One of the most spectacular sights on the RiverMedway today is the Kingswear Castle, a coal-firedpaddle steamer that was built in 1924 in Dartmouthfor use on the River Dart.

During the Second World War, Kingswear Castle wasused by the American Navy for ferrying stores aroundat Dartmouth. She was bought by the Paddle Steamer

The Kingswear Castle and a poster advertising steamertrips, c1930s

Le Kingswear Castle et une affiche publicitaire pour lestraversées en bateau à vapeur, vers les années 1930

De ‘Kingswear Castle’ en een advertentie voorstoomboottochtjes, ±1930

Preservation Society in 1967 moved to the Isle ofWight. In 1971 she was towed to the River Medwayand restored.

The Kingswear Castle returned to passenger service in1985 and now works up and down the River Medway.Since then over 200,000 passengers have been onboard and enjoyed a trip on this historic steamboat.

English Channel to Dunkirk, in dangerous conditions,to rescue around 7,000 men.

The Medway Queen returned to passenger duties until1963, when she was moved to the Isle of Wight. By thetime she was towed back to the Medway in 1984, sheneeded a very expensive programme of repair andreconstruction. After lots of work by the MedwayQueen Preservation Society, the money was finally wonin a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund in 2006.

The Strand, Gillingham c1939

Le Strand, Gillingham, vers 1939

The Strand, Gillingham, ±1939

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The River Medway and its environment will change agreat deal in the near future. The river may take on anew importance in a number of areas:

• Regeneration• Business• the Environment

What is Regeneration?

Regeneration is the name given to the way in whichcertain parts of the country get extra attention andmoney to help them grow and get busy again afteryears of quiet. In Medway, during the second half ofthe twentieth century, a number of big companiesclosed down or moved away from the area. Thismeant that there were fewer jobs. If people cannotfind work, they cannot spend money. Shops and otherbusinesses find it difficult to survive. They can closetoo, and things can get steadily worse. Regeneration isan attempt to stop this process by making an areaattractive again – in all sorts of ways.

Regeneration will also make the most of the riverrunning through the area. A number of important siteshave been set aside as places ready for redevelopment.

These sites will be designed to have a mixture ofbuildings and will make the most of the fact that livingnext to the water has become very popular over thepast few years. As well as attracting new people to thearea, these redevelopments will make Medway a nicerplace to be for those who already live there. Most ofthem are sites that have before been used by industry.They are often called brownfield sites to show they aredifferent from greenfield sites, where the naturalenvironment is destroyed by new building.

Rochester Riverside

The riverside site in Rochester includes most of theland between Corporation Street, the lower high streetand the river. For most of Rochester’s history this wasjust marshland and no good for building. In the earlyyears of the twenty first century a great deal of workhas been put into getting the site ready for hundreds ofhomes. The ground level has been raised with tonnesand tonnes of earth to make sure that the newbuildings are not affected by possible flooding.

8The future

St Marys Island and Chatham maritime L’île St Mary et Chatham maritime

St Mary’s Island en maritiem Chatham

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The plans include a number of green spaces and specialattention has been paid to the riverfront. It has beenmany years since people were able to get to this part ofthe Medway. Now a new walkway and cycle path allowsresidents and visitors to enjoy the river close-up.

Chatham Historic Dockyard and Chatham Maritime

The Chatham Dockyard closed as a business in 1984.By 2010, £850million had been spent to turn it into apopular visitor attraction and a busy new community.It has already seen more than 1,000 new homes, andoffices for over 5,000 staff. Universities and collegeshave moved into the fast-developing area known asChatham Maritime. New facilities have been built onthe Victorian dockyard site, including a marina for 300boats and 20 acres of parkland and riverside walks.

St Mary’s Island

St Mary’s Island has spent most of its history as anempty marsh and a place to dump rubbish. At the end ofthe Victorian period a number of huge basins were dugat its edge so that Chatham Dockyard could deal withthe larger ships that were being built at that time. Afterthe Dockyard closed, the area became a dirty wasteland.

Now St Mary’s Island is a busy community, completewith a primary school, a doctor’s surgery and acommunity centre, as well as hundreds of homes.Before any of this building could take place, over 1.2 million cubic metres of soil were taken away andreplaced, to make sure the site was clean.

Temple Waterfront

This site lies at the edge of Strood, oppositeRochester Castle. A new £100million development

will bring a mix of new homes, shops and space forbusinesses. As well as being able to enjoy the river,everyone who moves to the Temple Waterfront willhave a special opportunity to get to know Strood’soldest building, Temple Manor. This thirteenth centuryhall lies on the edge of the regeneration site and willbe one of its most exciting attractions.

Gillingham Waterfront

The riverside at Gillingham is being developed withnew houses and other buildings. Its place next to theriver but near the Medway Tunnel will make itattractive for anyone needing to travel by road to

work every day. The area stretches from St Mary’sIsland to Danes Hill. It includes what used to beGillingham Pier and so offers the possibility ofimproved public use of the river.

What does the future hold for theRiver Medway’s businesses?

The river has always been a highway. Until the railwayswere built it really had no competition in the businessof moving heavy things around. Although localindustries, such as brick and cement making, do notexist anymore, other companies still make use of the

The Historic Dockyard, Chatham Le chantier naval historique, Chatham De historische scheepswerf van Chatham

Temple Manor Temple Manor Temple Manor

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river for transportation. Even after the railways andthen cheap road transport, it has remained important.The mouth of the Medway, where the river meets theThames, provides good conditions for the mooring ofvery large ships. These include container ships thatbring large amounts of cargo to Kent by sea.

In recent years the River Medway has received morecontainer ships in a year than sea ports such asSouthampton. The Medway carries just over 2.6 per cent of the amount handled by UK ports. The cargo varies; wooden furniture from Scandinaviais very important.

Britain used to get a lot of its natural gas fromreserves it owned under the North Sea. Those havenow run out and so Britain needs to buy gas fromother countries. A port for Liquid Natural Gas hasbeen built next to the River Medway on the Isle ofGrain. Ships carrying the gas unload it into a pipelinethat leads to giant storage tanks. From here millions oftonnes of gas can be pumped into the network thatsupplies the whole country.

Chatham Docks

Chatham has a dock system that uses three basins, orplaces where ships can stop and unload. Over fivehundred ships use the dock each year, loading orunloading 1.2 million tonnes of cargo.

London Thamesport Container Terminal

The Isle of Grain lies at the end of the Hoo Peninsula,right at the mouth of the River Medway. In 1989 partof the old oil refinery here was converted into theLondon Thamesport Container Terminal. Thamesportis one of the largest and busiest ports in the UnitedKingdom. It is the country’s only fully automaticcontainer terminal. This means that its 655 metres ofquayside are equipped with driverless cranes tomove the containers around the port. The position ofeach container is tracked by the very latestcomputer systems.

Thamesport has its own railway station. Daily railservices connect the port to the rest of the railsystem. This means that anything that arrives in Kent this way can be quickly moved anywhere inthe country.

What will happen to the environment?

As the number of people living around the lowerreaches of the River Medway grew, the environmentsuffered. Over-fishing, river pollution, and large-scaleindustries like cement have changed the area forever.However, with many of those industries gone and theriver getting cleaner, there is an opportunity toencourage people to enjoy and look after the Medwayfor its own sake.

There is also a challenge. Regeneration will itself bringlarge numbers of people to the area to live in the newhomes that are built. These people will need shops andschools and hospitals and other community facilities.They will put more cars on roads that are alreadycrowded. Better planning will help because it willprovide space as well as houses where before therewas only wasteland. New housing designs will usefewer resources and encourage people to producefewer greenhouse gases. Better access to the rivermay mean than people are more likely to look after it.The natural environment is a resource that needs tobe managed carefully if it is to be enjoyed by Medwayresidents in the future.

There are also worries that concern the whole world.Global warming is likely to produce a rise in waterlevels in Britain. Nobody knows for sure how big thiswill be or how quickly it will happen. However, therecould hardly be a more important issue for anyonewho lives within walking distance of a major river likethe Medway. Action needs to be taken now, in case thevery feature that for centuries has made the area suchan attractive place to live and work may itself bringdanger and destruction in the future.

Looking across the River Medway towards the container terminal

Vue d’une rive à l’autre de la rivière Medway en direction du terminal à conteneurs

Uitzicht over de rivier de Medway, richting de containerterminal

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Acknowledgements

This colourful and informative learning resource hasbeen produced by the staff of the GuildhallMuseum, Rochester, Medway Council, as part of themuseum’s Opening the Doors to Access and Learningproject. The project outcomes promote improvedphysical and intellectual access to the museum andits collections.

Foreign language translations of the text of thislearning resource have been prepared to accompanythe English language edition, so that the informationabout Maritime Medway can also be shared withlearners who speak French and Dutch.

This project has been generously grant aided by theNational Lottery through the Heritage LotteryFund (Your Heritage), and by the EuropeanRegional Development Fund INTERREG IV A 2Mers Seas Zeeën Cross-border CooperationProgramme 2007-2013 Investing in your future.

Medway Council, who own and administer theGuildhall Museum, have made a significantcontribution towards the capital funding of theoverall project.Additional project outcomes include anew high street entrance to the museum, a new RiverMedway themed introductory gallery, reception andretail point; general gallery improvements and thecreation of a new Discovery Zone for visitors.

The following institutions and individuals deservespecial thanks for their help with the production ofthis publication.Medway Archives and Local Studies Centre,Medway CouncilRochester Oyster and Floating FisheryPeter Boreham, ResearcherDr Jeremy Clarke, Author and EditorSteve Nye, Historic imagesChristelle Pereira, European Projects Officer,Medway CouncilKelly Wood, Graphic Designer, Medway Council