Upnor and Related Topics

Medway

Unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England.

Dutch Attack on the Medway, June 1667 by Pieter Cornelisz van Soest, painted c. 1667. The captured ship is right of centre

The Chatham Naval Memorial commemorates the 18,500 officers, ranks and ratings of the Royal Navy who were lost or buried at sea in the two World Wars. It stands on the Great Lines between Chatham and Gillingham.

Chatham Bus Interchange Station, October 2011

The Quays, Chatham Dockside, December 2009

A view of the Medway Gate development, June 2009.

A view of former The Black Lion Leisure Centre (Now Medway Park), April 2009.

The A2 crossing the Medway at Rochester on the site of the Roman crossings, the medieval crossing was to the south

Junction Two of the M2 is on the A228, just before the Medway motorway bridge. Alongside is High Speed 1. Both are seen climbing up the Nashenden Valley, towards Bluebell Hill.

Frindsbury Extra including Upnor borders Strood.

Upnor Castle

Elizabethan artillery fort located on the west bank of the River Medway in Kent.

Map of fortifications on the Rivers Thames and Medway

A picture by Willem Schellincks of the raid. The view is from the south. On the left Upnor Castle is silhouetted against the flames; on the opposite side of the river more to the front the burning dockyard of Chatham. To the north the conflagration near the chain is shown and on the horizon the ruins of Sheerness Fort are still smoking.

Display of gunpowder barrels and naval howitzers in the magazine block

View of Upnor Castle from the Medway in 1845

Upnor Castle House, behind the perimeter wall

Water bastion, main building and north tower

Magazine, south tower and inner courtyard, viewed from the gatehouse

It is in the village of Upnor, opposite and a short distance downriver from the Chatham Dockyard, at one time a key naval facility.

RNAD Dean Hill: photograph taken inside Magazine No. 16 during the Second World War.

Royal Naval Armaments Depot

Armament depot (or a group of depots) dedicated to supplying the Royal Navy (as well as, at various times, the Royal Air Force, the British Army and foreign and Commonwealth forces).

Upnor Castle served as a magazine and store from 1668 to 1913, and continued in military use (as part of RNAD Upnor) until 1945.

Building 21, Royal Arsenal, Woolwich: Headquarters of the Naval Ordnance Store Department and its successors until 1967.

Entrance to one of the underground magazines at Dean Hill in the early 1940s.

In times of conflict the demand for provision (and therefore storage) of gunpowder grew, so additional magazines were built during the French Revolutionary Wars at Tipner (from 1788) and Weedon (from 1802), and during the Napoleonic Wars at Upnor (from 1806) and Marchwood (from 1811).

Gunpowder magazine

Magazine designed to store the explosive gunpowder in wooden barrels for safety.

Gunpowder magazine on St Helen's Bastion at Fort Manoel

Gunpowder magazine on Guardian Angel Bastion at Fort Chambray

A drawing of the Barout khaneh, a Powder tower in Tehran, by Eugène Flandin, 1840

Tilbury: a unique pair of early 18th-century magazines within the Fort

Royal Gunpowder Magazine No. 5, Purfleet, Essex

The 18th-century 'A' Magazine at Priddy's Hard

Magazine, the old gunpowder store at Sedgeford

Magazine of 1857 (centre) alongside Upnor Castle (left)

Alternating magazine and traverse buildings (left) inside the boundary wall (right) at Weedon Bec

The remote situation of a gunpowder magazine near Kilmarnock in 1819. It had gone by 1880 because of the expansion of the town.

Irvine circa 1870. The Old parish kirk, manse and gunpowder magazine are prominent on the right bank of the river.

The old Powder or Pouther magazine at Irvine dating from 1642.

Detail of locking mechanism of Dockra Powder House

The gunpowder magazine of Dockra Powder House

Upnor, Chattenden and Lodge Hill depots remained in military ownership until the mid-2010s, when the MOD marketed the land for housing and commercial use.

Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps

Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps were British Army training camps in Chattenden and Hoo St Werburgh in Kent.

Narrow-gauge locomotive in front of Chattenden barracks

Central Terrace: built as Police Quarters for those guarding the depot at Chattenden, later used for Explosive Ordnance Search & Disposal training.

Entrance to Lodge Hill Camp Firing Range

Former Police Office by the outer gate of the magazine compound at Chattenden.

During the Napoleonic Wars a gunpowder magazine was built alongside the castle at Lower Upnor designed to store a further 10,000 barrels of gunpowder, followed in 1857 by another, larger magazine which could hold up to 23,000 barrels.

River Medway

River in South East England.

Dusk at Lower Upnor on the Medway Estuary

Frindsbury Church above the former entrance to the Thames and Medway Canal

The Medway flows through Tonbridge in many channels. The South Eastern Main Line crosses the Medway.

The Botany stream forms another channel in Tonbridge.

Tonbridge Castle, a motte-and-bailey castle from 1066.

The River Medway passes Tonbridge Castle and passes under Big Bridge.

Barges moored on the Medway at Aylesford

Grain and Thamesport, from Horrid Hill, Gillingham.

The mouth of the Medway, looking from Grain to Sheerness.

And into the Thames, youngsters at Grain with Southend beyond.

Isle of Grain and the Medway Estuary from the air

The illustrations include the castles at Queenborough, Upnor, Leybourne, Tonbridge and Hever; Penshurst Place; and the bridges at Teston, Maidstone, Aylesford, East Farleigh, Barming, Branbridges and Tonbridge.

Chatham Dockyard

Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent.

The Dockyard as depicted by Robert Dodd in 1789

Engraving of "Chatham Dockyard from Fort Pitt" from Ireland's History of Kent, Vol. 4, 1831. Facing p. 349. Drawn by G. Sheppard, engraved by R. Roffe.

17th-century painting of naval vessels moored on the River Medway, viewed from Chatham with Rochester Bridge in the background.

1884 map, showing the 'Royal Dock Yard' (centre) with the river to the west, new extension to the north, barracks and fortifications to the east.

Armour plating being fitted to HMS Royal Oak at Chatham, c. 1862.

HMS Empress of India in No 8 Dock, with No 1 Boiler Shop in the background, c. 1897.

Plate-bending roller, installed in No 5 Machine Shop in 1913 and now preserved at the Historic Dockyard.

The Dockyard extension viewed from Upnor, c.1910.

Rennie's No 3 Dock of 1816–21; today it contains HMS Ocelot, the last Royal Navy vessel built at Chatham.

The topsail schooner Julia visiting the middle basin in 2006; behind her is the St Mary's Island housing estate

Police Section House, one of the Dockyard's many listed buildings

The Commissioner's House (1704), was built for Captain George St Lo, who found the previous house unsuitable. It remains the oldest surviving naval building in England.

The Ordnance Storekeeper's house at the heart of the former Gun Wharf

The Gun Wharf, c.1890: the 1717 Grand Store can be seen left of centre (with the Dockyard's Anchor Wharf storehouse in the distance beyond). The surviving carpenters' shop and machine shop are on the right.

Surviving 1757 block from the original Infantry Barracks

Kitchener Barracks (1950s extension, demolished in 2017).

The Royal Marine Barracks in the Second World War.

Royal School of Military Engineering (1872) and Boer War Memorial Arch (1902) at Brompton Barracks.

The Garrison Church of St Barbara in Maxwell Road continues to serve Brompton Barracks.

Assistant Queen's Harbourmaster's Office

The Captain of the Dockyard's House and flagstaff

Double Ropewalk and Black Yarn House to right

View down the length of the former No 7 Dock towards No 1 Basin (now Chatham Marina)

Remains of No 8 Machine Shop with No 1 Boiler Shop behind it

Dock pumping station (its 80 ft chimney, formerly on the plinth to the right, has been removed)

The oldest surviving barracks in the Chatham area is in Upnor; dating from 1718, it housed the detachment of 64 men responsible for guarding the gunpowder store in Upnor Castle.