CHATHAM DOCKYARD’S LITTLE BIG MOVER

hatham Dockyard was created in the early 1500s and continued to serve the Royal Navy until 1984 when it closed permanently as a result of the 1981 Defence Review. Fortunately, the most historic sections of the dockyard were saved for the nation as a tourist attraction. In the 1930s and 1940s the dockyard was a hive of activity repairing war damaged ships and building numerous submarines for the Royal Navy, something that continued until as late as the mid-1960s when the last three submarines for the Canadian Navy were constructed at Chatham. The building slips where these boats were built was then used for storage with all but one concreted in to provide a level surface. In one of these are housed the overspill collection of military vehicles from the nearby Royal Engineers Museum at Brompton around a two mile drive from the dockyard. It is