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Battle of The Medway

SATURDAY 17TH JUNE 2017

June Down To The Docks

Three hundred and fifty years ago, a fleet of Dutch ships stole their way up the River Medway and launched a daring attack on the English naval fleet moored at Chatham. In the battle that ensued the English ships were destroyed and the River Medway was engulfed in flames; a major event for Samuel Pepys to write about in his diary as he was administrator of His Majesty’s Royal Navy.

On Saturday 17^th June 2017 celebrations of this anniversary culminated in a splendid firework display and ‘river of fire’, which was impossible to capture with my compact camera and many heads in the way.

Back in 1667 this calamity led to huge investment in new ships and dockyard facilities, laying the foundations for British supremacy at sea for the next 200 years, sadly the closure of Chatham Dockyard on 31 March 1984 brought to an end more than 400 years of shipbuilding and naval tradition.

What was a terrible loss of jobs, industry and tradition brought regeneration, new housing and access to the River Medway; basins, docks and locks make a great setting for bars, shopping outlets, leisure boats and an Historic Dockyard tourist destination. As the heatwave continued on Sunday we took a boat trip to nearby Rochester and back, gliding past the barges used for the fireworks and the big screen displays.