by Jenni Horn

Medway's adopted warship is being sold by the Ministry of Defence.

HMS Chatham, the last Royal Navy ship commissioned in Chatham, is one of four Type 22 frigates up for sale.

HMS Campbeltown, HMS Cumberland and HMS Cornwall are also on the market.

They are being sold either for reuse, for sinking to create an artificial reef or for recycling.

The closing date for bids is Wednesday, January 23, and interested parties will be able to view the vessels at Portsmouth, where they are docked, between February 25 and March 15.

HMS Chatham, decommissioned in 2011, is no longer in working order. Parts of the vessel have been removed by the MoD including three of the engines and most of the interior fittings.It was built in Wallsend in 1989.

The following year it became the first warship to be commissioned outside a Royal Naval establishment. The ceremony took place in Number One basin - now called Chatham Docks. Only six years earlier, the naval dockyard had closed, ending Medway’s 400-year link with the Royal Navy.

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 November 2010 HMS Chatham visited Medway for the last time, to mark 20 years of service, and in February 2011, thousands of people lined the streets when ship’s crew marched through the Towns.