Kent Police Box at Chatham Docks

The Police box from the Kent Police museum at the Chatham Dockyard, or is it?

© Lionel Callow 2014

Chatham Dockyard 2

Second day of my recent visit to the historic dockyard at Chatham.

The White Ensign

Model of HMS Victory

The covered dry dock made of wood is one of the nation’s best preserved buildings. Built in 19^th century, it was needed to protect the wooden ships of the day from deterioration whilst they were under construction. Once ships were made from iron this shed could not be used for building ships due to the fire risk and was then used for a number of other purposes. 

HMS Gannet 1878

HMS Gannet 1878

HMS Gannet 1878

HMS Cavalier

HMS Cavalier

Figurehead HMS Rodney 1884

© Lionel Callow 2014

Historic Dockyard Chatham

The Ropery at The Historic Dockyard with its ¼ mile long Double Rope house is still being used as a working commercial factory today.

HMS Ocelot

HMS Ocelot is an Oberon class diesel electric submarine. This was the last submarine built in the Chatham Dockyard, launched on the 5^th May 1962 & commissioned on 31^st January 1964, paid off in August 1991.

Visitors to this submarine need to be happy in small enclosed spaces and agile enough to get through the hatches between the compartments. 

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Casing looking at the sonar dome     

Forward torpedo room

Hatch between compartments  

Chart table

Periscope

Periscope

Diesel engine room

Diesel engine room

Helm

If you visit the dockyard the Submarine & the Ropery are both must see tours, I recommend when you arrive you book the two tours before you do anything else, you will need to have a timed ticket to visit these two attractions & they are very popular.  

© Lionel Callow 2014

Knole Deer Park

I am just back from an enforced lay off so I was paying a visit to the National Trust’s Knole Deer Park, located Nr. Sevenoaks Kent, it has a over 1000 acres of the rolling garden of England, it also has a very beautiful house but that is covered in scaffold just now.

The deer are almost tame and have very little fear of humans so you can follow them round without any problem. The big problem is with people ignoring all the notices not to feed them, apparently last year someone was badly injured when they run out of feed and the deer was none too pleased so guess what happened.  

© Lionel Callow 2014