For centuries it was the thriving heart of north Kent – a massive dockyard employing generations of skilled workers.

But 40 years ago this weekend, it all came to a sad end when the Royal Navy said farewell to Chatham. But as one chapter closed, another one opened…

On March 30, 1984, Chatham Dockyard’s gates closed – ending 400 years of the Royal Navy's presence in the town and the surrounding area.

The very same day, Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust was formed to save 80 acres of the historic site and provide a beacon of hope for the community.

At its height during the Second World War, the Dockyard employed more than 17,000 workers from more than 26 different trades.

Just prior to the announcement of its closure, it employed 6,500 civilians.

Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust chief executive Richard Morsley said: “In 1984, the year of Band Aid and the Miners’ Strike, the closure of the Dockyard went unnoticed by many outside of the Medway Towns.

“Its closure was more than purely an economic impact, the Dockyard provided identity, purpose and value to the community; it was akin to the heart being ripped out of the Towns.”

He added: “For nearly four centuries, the Dockyard played a hugely significant role in supporting the Royal Navy.

“Within its walls and on its slips over 400 ships and submarines were built, including HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship at the Battle of Trafalgar.

“During its long history, from the Age of Sail through to the Falklands Conflict, thousands more ships and submarines were maintained and refitted in Chatham.”

Described as the ‘mainspring of the Medway Towns’ economy’, the Dockyard supported local businesses which were dependent upon it or its workforce for their order books.

Mr Morsley continued: “It was also the education centre for Medway.

“School leavers would take the Dockyard Exam – this would determine their level of training and apprenticeship from the boiler room to the Admiral’s office.

“From shipbuilding to architecture – trades were taught and forged at the Dockyard.”

John Spence OBE, who has been a part of the Dockyard for seven decades as a member of the county council and a dedicated employee, remembers its final day.

He said: “There was a ceremonial formal closing of the gates with two local mayors and others, along with an exchange of gifts.”

After 400 years as a Royal Dockyard, the closure was marked with mementoes handed to the new owners of the site to signify the spirit of regeneration.

A baton was handed to Lieutenant-General Sir Steuart R Pringle, chairman and chief executive of the Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust.

It listed all the ships built at Chatham between 1547-1984 and read: “This baton was handed over to symbolise passing on the responsibility for continuing and developing the tradition of high standards in skill and performance which were maintained on the Dockyard site for over 400 years.”

Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust had its inaugural meeting at the Ministry of Defence building on Whitehall that same afternoon as the closure.

It was established with an endowment from the government of £11.35 million, representing the minimum sum felt necessary to enable immediate maintenance priorities to be met, and giving the trust sufficient breathing space to be able to establish commercial ventures to generate sufficient income to secure its long-term future.

Two years before the closure, Kent County Council commissioned a report which helped outline the blueprint for the future of the Dockyard and the importance of the historic buildings – with particular emphasis on a “living dockyard”.

Michael Heseltine visited as Environment Secretary, and Mr Spence was one of those to show him around. He said: “Michael Heseltine was convinced the buildings and site needed saving.”

Regular discussions were had with the government through dockyard spokespeople and those involved in the local authority during the early 1980s.

When the trust was formed in 1984, Paul Hudson became an advisor to the first chairman – Sir Steuart Pringle.

As a planner and economic development specialist, Paul has been involved in the evolution of the Dockyard since its closure.

His understanding of the importance of the Scheduled Ancient Monument buildings helped the trustees and wider team achieve their aim of creating a “living dockyard”.

He explained how passion and understanding helped save the buildings and create a living museum in Medway.

He said: “The inter-relationship between the buildings is so strong and they were purposefully constructed for shipbuilding – and maintaining them as a group was of the greatest importance.

“Having a body that’s single-minded and dedicated to the task, where you have such a large group of buildings over an extensive site (80 acres) you do need a group of people whose only purpose in life is to secure, preserve and re-use the buildings.

“It’s a great example of what you do when you set up an organisation with a clear remit and central purpose.

“Renovating buildings is an expensive task. Renovating one Schedule Ancient Monument building is a significant undertaking – what do you do when you have 47 to save?”

The government awarded the trust £11.35m but it didn’t receive all the money to do what they wanted – £3.5m was already allocated by the government for the re-roofing of The Ropery – the longest brick building in Europe, with one of the longest roofs in Europe.

Of the £7.85m that remained, it left little financial discretion.

“Preservation by re-use” became the remit for the trust. They’d looked (prior to closure) at other convincing models, and even visited Boston to see the achievements there, where the US had saved a large historic industrial complex.

The scale and difficulty of saving the world’s most complete dockyard of the Age of Sail, was not lost on the future director of heritage, visitor experience and learning, Richard Holdsworth.

He said: “The Dockyard was the reason Chatham and the Medway Towns existed.

“The 80 acres of heritage, or a square mile, is entirely built heritage, and on a huge scale.”

The Dockyard is like no other site, or museum, due in part to its size, and the fact that it is home to over 100 buildings built from the 1700s onwards.

He added: “Some of the heritage equivalents are the big northern mill complexes in Manchester, Cromford Mill in New Lanark (Scotland), Ironbridge, or world heritage sites.

“The difference with Chatham is it wasn’t a question of a changing industry – this was a closure as the result of a direct government decision.”

Slowly but surely, the public began to come through the gates of the Dockyard. A new visitor centre was opened in July 1985, but Richard explained: “The experience was very much ‘look at the history of the dockyard in one building then walk around the derelict buildings and mind your step!’

“The Ropery, the first gallery, opened two years later and enabled visitors to see the working naval ropery.”

In 1986, the first full year of opening to the public, 14,000 people came to The Historic Dockyard Chatham.

Residential housing works started in 1986 with the renovation of No.1 Officer’s Terrace.

In April 1987, the first exhibition in the Ropery was opened and the Historic Dockyard’s own ropemaking company Master Ropermakers ran the commercial operation.

In July 1987, the Victorian sloop HMS Gannet first arrived on site as part of an employment training scheme part funded by Kent County Council.

A temporary exhibition gallery opened in 1988 and the Sail & Colour Loft opened with a viewing gallery so visitors could see people working with traditional skills.

During the period of 1989/1990, the trust tackled the restoration of its first major Scheduled Ancient Monument, the Mast Houses and Mould Loft to house the site’s first major museum gallery, Wooden Walls – a reconstruction of the dockyard of the Age of Sail.

In 1990, the wooden Walls gallery was awarded the English Tourist Board’s highest national award for development of a tourist attraction.

The Mast Houses and Mould Loft received a commendation in the 1990 Civic Trust Awards.

The early ‘90s would see a submarine ‘return ’home’ and a world-beating discovery.

On August 26, 1995, HM Submarine Ocelot opened to visitors in Basin 2 at Chatham Maritime.

It was open on weekends and members of the recently-formed Chatham Historic Dockyard Voluntary Service were involved with delivering tours for the public.

Ocelot was special for Chatham – she was the last submarine to be built for the Royal Navy there, so her return ‘home’’ felt significant to many.

Just a few months later on December 18, timbers were discovered beneath the floor of the Wheelwright’s Shop during renovations to the building.

It was deemed “the single most important warship discovery in Northern Europe since that of the Mary Rose”.

The Scottish Institute of Maritime Archaeology undertook extensive tests and the timbers were discovered to be from Age of Sail second rate ship of the line, Namur.

Namur was built at Chatham Dockyard between 1750 and 1756 and the timbers were laid beneath the floor after the ship was broken up in 1834.

In August 1995, Ocelot opened to the public and in the space of a year received 28,000 visitors.

The trust was in desperate need of funds to stay open and continue with its burgeoning offering to visitors.

The electricity supply system in most of the Dockyard’s buildings wasn’t fit to be connected and the maintenance costs across the site were huge.

However, new funds came from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) with an initial grant of £8.8m and a further £4.7m from the City of Rochester upon Medway – predecessor to Medway Council.

The balance up to a recommended £14.7m came from English Heritage and other trusts.

The lottery provided a further £1.2m in revenue support and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport agreed to grant aid of £300,000 annually which revolutionised the trust’s financial resources.

Richard added: “Without that first HLF award, the Dockyard would have stalled and probably would never have been able to get to effective revenue-based sustainability that it has today.

“The HLF award laid the foundations for bringing the Dockyard back into use.”

Further funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund over the years has seen grants towards the Smithery, the Command of the Oceans visitor experience and Fitted Rigging House projects meaning that total investment from this source alone has been over £30m.

Together with many other grants, the Dockyard has benefitted from financial support that could only once have been dreamed of in 1984.

For more on the history of the site, visit the Historic Dockyard Chatham’s website

Tomorrow KentOnline reports on former workers’ memories of the Dockyard.