Royal Navy sailors will parade through the streets of Chatham for what could be the last time next month.

The town's connection with the Navy stretches back hundreds of years, but confirmation HMS Chatham is to be decommissioned at the end of February means the end of that centuries-old bond is now on the horizon.

To mark the historical severing of ties, the ship's company will exercise the right granted by the Freedom of Chatham to parade through the town on Saturday, February 12, accompanied by the Band of the Royal Marines.

The parade will come three months after HMS Chatham visited the town for the last time in November, when thousands of residents came to say farewell to the ship.

During that visit the ship celebrated the 20th anniversary of her commissioning which, breaking with established naval tradition, was the first such ceremony to have been held outside of an operational naval base.

Since she first left Medway in 1990, HMS Chatham has had a long and distinguished history - firstly as the main naval presence when Hong Kong was handed back to China, and then as the ship that fired the first rounds in the second Gulf War.

In 2004, she went to the aid of Sri Lanka and the Maldives when the Christmas tsunami struck and in March 2010 became the NATO flagship for international naval operations against Somali piracy.