Chatham - 551 km

Chatham (recorded in 1086 as Ceteham inDomesday Book) grew around the Royal Navy dockyard established by Henry VIII and later improved by Charles I. The dockyard, closed as a naval base in the early 1980s, is now a historic trust. It lies partly on reclaimed land where the Medway broadens into a tidal estuary.

During the Napoleonic Wars a number of forts known as “Chatham Lines” were built on a hill east of the town. The Chatham Lines were first constructed in 1755 as a defensive fortification to protect the landward side of Chatham Dockyard and the subsequently associated barracks. The pre-existing civilian settlement of Brompton was incorporated into the militarised zone

The novelist Charles Dickens lived at Chatham from 1817 to 1821 while his father worked in the naval pay office. The district is featured in many of his novels. Charles Dickens moved to the area when he was five and spent a happy childhood around Chatham. Dickens' most impressionable childhood days were spent in Medway and it was the place he found inspiration for some of his work's greatest characters and settings.  Many of the buildings found on Rochester's historic high street carry plaques detailing how the author incorporated them into his novels.  A gentle stroll around local sites and graveyards will reveal where he found the names of many of his characters.