Chatham Dockyard - Descriptions

Descriptions

  • William Camden (1551–1623) described Chatham dockyard as
    • stored for the finest fleet the sun ever beheld, and ready at a minute’s warning, built lately by our most gracious sovereign Elizabeth at great expense for the security of her subjects and the terror of her enemies, with a fort on the shore for its defence.
  • From the will of Richard Holborne (1654), Shipwright, comes a description of the Dockyard area of Chatham:
    • It talks about his ould house...as it is now fenced with the brewing house and garden joyning it with the belle now standing...and the wharfe in the millponde...unto the fence of James Marsh...to have ingresse, egresse, and regresse through that way unto the waterside or water gate...and...the greate Gate Westward...and the...pumpe.
      • The Chatham Churchwardens’ accounts show that Richard, a cousin of Phineas Pett, was Churchwarden from 1634 to 1643. Further details under Peter Pett.
  • Daniel Defoe visiting the yard in 1705, also spoke of its achievements with an almost incredulous enthusiasm:
    • So great is the order and application there, that a first-rate vessel of war of 106 guns, ordered to be commissioned by Sir Cloudesley Shovell, was ready in three days. At the time the order was given the vessel was entirely unrigged; yet the masts were raised, sails bent, anchors and cables on board, in that time.

Francis Drake also lived in the old hulks there and spent his youth in Medway.

Read more about this topic:  Chatham Dockyard

Famous quotes containing the word descriptions:

    Matter-of-fact descriptions make the improbable seem real.
    Mason Cooley (b. 1927)

    The fundamental laws of physics do not describe true facts about reality. Rendered as descriptions of facts, they are false; amended to be true, they lose their explanatory force.
    Nancy Cartwright (b. 1945)

    Our Lamaze instructor . . . assured our class . . . that our cervix muscles would become “naturally numb” as they swelled and stretched, and deep breathing would turn the final explosions of pain into “manageable discomfort.” This descriptions turned out to be as accurate as, say a steward advising passengers aboard the Titanic to prepare for a brisk but bracing swim.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)