A Grand Day Out

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

A visit to The Historic Dockyard Chatham

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Last weekend, my wife had her best friends from university around for a visit, and so, to get out from under their feet, my wife and I had agreed that I should hie off to somewhere else.

The world is of course rather full of somewhere elses, and had it been this coming weekend, there's a fair chance I'd have gone to the Intermodellbau in Dortmund … However, 'twas not, and so I cast my net a bit wider and started thinking about places within a reasonable reach of London St. Pancras (and the Eurostar terminal) that I could go to, when the thought struck me that I'd been meaning for ages to get to the Historic Dockyards in Chatham!

Said and done: last Saturday morning — an overcast and rather cold morning at that — found me outside the dockyard entrance!

Having secured my timed tickets to the ropewalk and the submarine, I first spent a lovely hour walking around the national collection of RNLI lifeboats …

… admiring lifeboats from different eras …

… and ever so often zooming the camera in for some more detailed pictures for future reference — one never knows …

Some of the lifeboats were even available to visit on board …

… so that even more detail …

… could be captured!

Interestingly enough, although it seems the collection does not contain a Rother class, I spotted one on the river, tied up to the pier just below the dockyards!

By now, my timeslot for the ropewalk was coming up, so thence I went, and after a very interesting guided tour/lecture and ropemaking demonstration, one was left at leisure to admire the main ropewalk.

As they used to say in the old MGM Droopy cartoons: long, isn't it!

This being a Saturday, there was no ropemaking going on, but the machinery (dating, if I understood correctly, from the mid-1800s and still in use) was very much there to be studied …

… and admired.

As I'm sure you all know, there are also three fullsize ships to look at, HMS Gannet, here seen agaist the backdrop of the covered No 3 slip from on board …

… HMS Cavalier.

Although (more) modern naval ships are not my main interest, here, too, there was a lot of detail to see, and I also found her very interesting to visit because of the unusually strong (for a museum ship) feeling of her as a place of work.

The (timed ticket) visit to the submarine, HMS Ocelot, was also very interesting …

… although, as is often the case with me, the ship that spoke the strongest to my imagination was the one with masts and rigging for sail …

… i.e. the sloop HMS Gannet.

To be continued …

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Apart from the fascinating nautical, naval and social histories told by this museum, I also thoroughly enjoyed the industrial heritage aspects of the visit, not least in the form of some of the older buildings, including the beautiful 18th century wooden structure …

… that covers the No 3 slip.

At the end of a long and rewarding day, I left the dockyards by the old main gates …

… and returned to very agreeable lodgings, just up the hill from the dockyard at The King George V pub in Brompton village, where my room was comfortable, the food was very good and the ale was real (and in plentiful supply). Heartilly recommended!

All in all (although the moon was never involved) A Grand Day Out!

/Mattias

[Bob Abell 2Participant @bobabell2]

Hello Banjo

Pleased you had a nice trip out to Chatham Dockyard………Portsmouth next?

Never been myself, pity you missed the rope machine operating though

Just out of interest, we have a rope making facility, here in Derbyshire

It`s housed in a large cavern, in the Peak District and was called the Rope Walk

It was operative about fifty years ago and was run by a very old chap, who passed away about that time

I believe Nelson ships had some of the ropes that were produced here

The rope maker had some primitive wooden contraptions about 100 yards apart and he walked back an forth…..All day long…….Smoking his pipe

Sadly, we didn`t take much notice at the time

Bob

[BanjomanParticipant @banjoman]

Hello Bob,

I've already been twice to Portsmouth, although I think it more than probable I shall go there again, now that the Mary Rose has come out of the eternal mists and can be properly viewed for the first time since she sank, as it were …

Interesting, too, to hear about your local historic ropewalk! For the demonstration ropemaking at Chatham, the guide used exactly that — wooden contraptions, one fixed and the other moveable, that were, I am sure, newly built examples of the type of (comparatively) simple machinery that was traditionally used to form and close ropes before the technical advances of the 19th century. As this one was set up for demonstration purposes, though, the distance between the two contraptions were only some 10 or 15 yards.

It was very interesting to see, also from the point of view of eventually setting up a miniature ropewalk at home for making scale ropes for model purposes …

If ever you find yourself down the Kent way, though, I can really recommend the Chatham dockyard — I was there from 10 am until well after 4 pm, and could easily have spent another full day or more there without running out of things to look at.

/Mattias

Edited By Banjoman on 22/04/2016 12:51:05

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