Nowhere in the world is it possible to see such an intact naval dockyard for the building and maintenance of the ships of the sailing navy as at Chatham. This book, edited by Neil Cossons, Jonathan Coad, Andrew Lambert, Paul Hudson and Paul Jardine - all experts in their fields - brings together their combined knowledge to tell the dockyard's history, from Elizabethan origins to fleet base and shipbuilding yard, from sail to steel to submarines. They set out the extraordinary scale of the legacy and the challenges of the future once the yard closed in the 1980s. This is a story of the creation of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust and the management of an outstanding historic asset for the benefit of the public. Profusely illustrated, it is the first authoritative account of how Chatham's dockyard was saved for the nation and managed for nearly forty years to exemplary standards.

Founded in 1570, Chatham Dockyard quickly became one of the most important naval yards for the repair and building of warships, maintaining a pre-eminent position for the next 400 years. Located on the River Medway, in all, the yard was responsible for the construction of over 500 warships, these ranging from simple naval pinnaces through to first-rates that fought at Trafalgar, and concluding with the hunter-killer submarines of the nuclear age. In this detailed new history of the yard from experienced local and maritime author Philip MacDougall, particular attention is given to the final two hundred years of the yard's history, the artisans and labourers who worked there and the changing methods used in the construction of some of the finest warships to enter naval service. Coinciding with the dockyard's seeking status as a World Heritage site, this fascinating history places Chatham firmly in its overall historical context.

Merab Eliza Hartfield might be practically penniless amid all the elegance of Georgian Bath, but she certainly does not intend to submit to the outrageous conditions of her grandfather's will by marrying the rude and overbearing Rowland Sandiford.

Chatham is a town steeped in history and strange folklore, but much of its ghostly past, and present, remains unwritten. For the first time ever the spectral secrets of this place are uncovered as we delve into ghost stories obscure and well known. The book features an array of haunted houses and shops, and sheds new light on classic local legends at locations like Chatham Dockyard and Fort Amherst. Many stories appear for the first time in print, with information gained first-hand from witnesses who’ve experienced the phenomena. Richly illustrated, Haunted Chatham is your guide to one of Kent’s most supernatural places.

With extensive eyewitness accounts, the author of Killing the Bismarck vividly reconstructs the day British soldiers sank the infamous Nazi battleship. May 26, 1941. After a desperate chase lasting three days and more than seventeen hundred miles, Britain’s Home Fleet would finally close in on the world’s most powerful battleship, the very ship that sank the Royal Navy’s battlecruiser HMS Hood. The German battleship Bismarck was literally in a class by itself, being one of two newly-designed Bismarck-class ships in the German fleet. But it would soon face, and ultimately lose, a brutal fight to the finish involving more than five thousand men of the Royal Navy and twenty-six thousand men of Hitler’s Kriegsmarine. Historian Iain Ballantyne spent years conducting interviews with surviving veterans who had been present on that fateful day. Published here for the first time, alongside a compelling narrative of the final twenty-four hours of the mission to sink the Bismarck, are transcripts of those interviews, offering the unique eyewitness accounts of Royal Navy sailors who participated in one of the most significant sea battles of World War II.

Based on extensive research, The Naval History of Wales tells a compelling story that spans nearly 2,000 years, from the Romans to the present. Many Welsh men and women have served in the Royal Navy and the navies of other countries. Welshmen played major parts in voyages of exploration, in the navy's suppression of the slave trade, and in naval warfare from the Viking era to the Spanish Armada, in the American Civil War, both world wars and the Falklands War. Comprehensive, enlightening, and provocative, The Naval History of Wales also explodes many myths about Welsh history, naval historian J.D. Davies arguing that most Welshmen in the sailing navy were volunteers and that, relative to the size of national populations, proportionately more Welsh seamen than English fought at Trafalgar. Written in vivid detail, this volume is one that no maritime or Welsh historian can do without.