Medway Shipping

There is evidence of Roman settlement and the name Medway is Roman in origin, it was King Henry VIII who really established the river as a major port when he based the Royal Navy there, a connection which was not severed until the late twentieth century.

In Medway Shipping, Geoff Lunn provides a tour of the Medway and its ports and harbours as well as the shipping that once thronged the river estuary. He has lived along the banks of the Medway all his life and some of his earliest childhood memories are of watching ships from the creaking, well used piers at Chatham. He is a semi-retired freelance writer who has also written a successful book on Port of London shipping

As well as naval ships, the port towns of Rochester, Chatham and Sheerness also saw much commercial traffic, from coasters to pleasure craft as well as tankers calling at the Isle of Grain oil refinery. Today there is a huge container terminal in the Medway and shipping still thrives there.

From pleasure steamers to passenger ships, from submarines to battleships, this book explores the varied types of water traffic that have used the area over the years. Thames barges, shipyards and paddle steamers all feature in this book which will appeal to local residents as much as to shipping enthusiasts.

The River Medway rises in sandstone country just over the border with Sussex and travels for 70 miles in a north-easterly direction before running into the estuary of the River Thames. The evidence of strong links between the Medway and the Romans is explored in this book, there is evidence that the Romans constructed Rochester’s first bridge and while the exact date will probably never be known, somewhere approaching 2000 years later Rochester is still the furthest point downstream at which the River Medway is bridged.

Although the Romans play an important part in the Medway’s history, it was King Henry VIII in the sixteenth century who paved the way towards the Medway’s long-running connections with the Royal Navy. The book explores how he was the first English monarch to order the building of ships specifically designed for war, he appreciated the virtues of the river’s lower reached at Chatham as the perfect shelter for his valued fleet, basing a number of vessels there in winter months.

Medway Shipping
By Geoff Lunn
Published by Tempus
ISBN 0752435655
Paperback, 128 pages
Price £12.99