Upnor and Related Topics

Upnor Castle

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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.

Medway

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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.

Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps

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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.

Frindsbury

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Part of the Medway Towns conurbation in Kent, southern England.

Here we see how Strood the marshy place, relates to Frindsbury. The station, canal basin and all the wharves downstream of the Watermill were in Frindsbury. The steep slopes are caused by the chalk pits. Note also the undrained land between the railway, and Frindsbury Hill, and the lack of houses.

Frindsbury Church stood on a hill overlooking the Medway. The hill has been extensively quarried leaving the distinctive cliffs. To the left of the church is Church Green. Directly in front of it is Strood Pier and the entrance to the Strood basin. To the right is the Frindsbury Peninsula, and the Phoenix Wharf and Lower Curel's Yard.

Within the civil parish of Frindsbury Extra are the villages of Frindsbury, Wainscott, and Upnor.

Gunpowder magazine

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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.

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

Royal Naval Armaments Depot

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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).

The Arethusa Venture Centre at Lower Upnor

Shaftesbury Homes and Arethusa

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One of the United Kingdom's oldest children's charities.

The figurehead of Arethusa at the Shaftesbury Young People centre on the River Medway

The move to Upnor occurred in 1933, when the Arethusa was broken up and replaced with a steel-hulled nitrates clipper, the Peking.

River Medway

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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.