Chatham is a town in Kent found along the River Medway; it is home to over 75,000 people and very much steeped in its history as a vital military location over the centuries.
Here are 7 facts you may not have known about the town.
1) The first recorded mentioning of Chatham was as Cetham in 880, and then in the Doomsday Book in 1086, where the name Ceteham was used instead. Historians suggest that the Chatham originates from a combination of an Old English word that survived from the Romans Cetu, meaning 'basin' or 'valley', with the popular suffix ham meaning 'settlement'.
2) Novelist Charles Dickens grew up in Chatham when his father, John Dickens, a clerk in the Navy Pay Office, was transferred to Chatham Dockyard in 1817. He described these formative years as the happiest in his life, and much of his work has connections to Chatham and the surrounding areas.
3) Chatham's twin town is Valenciennes in the north of France. This pairing happened in 1955 making it the second oldest such twinning in the UK.
4) Famous faces born in Chatham include multi-media artist Billy Childish, singer Lee Ryan from the boy band Blue and iconic fashion and textile designer Zandra Rhodes who has created looks for Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury.
5) The Chatham Naval Memorial is one of three obelisks in the country (the other two are situated in Portsmouth and Plymouth) built in 1924 to pay respect to fallen Naval heroes who died without a grave during WWI. It was designed by architect Robert Lorimer and is the only one to stand on a hill, thus being a dominant presence to the town below. The obelisk was extended into the memorial it is today following the second world war and now holds 18,621 names.
6) All Saints' Hospital closed its doors in 1999, but it was originally the Medway Union Workhouse, built in 1849 to replace the Chatham Workhouse, which is said to have inspired Dickens' Oliver Twist. The NHS acquired the property in 1948 and was then given the name All Saints'. Homes now occupy the site, but some roads in the area bear the names of the wards they replaced.
This isn't the only building in Chatham that has evolved from its original use; the Brook Theatre was once Chatham Town Hall. Find out more about Kent's beautiful buildings here.
7) Chatham Dockyard was declared a Royal Dockyard by Queen Elizabeth I in 1567 due to its strategic location, close to London and at a gateway to the continent. Now the Dockyard is a museum and often features in historical dramas such as Call the Midwife, Downton Abbey and The Crown but perhaps most famously in the 2012 film adaptation of Les Misérables starring Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway.
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