Those Places Thursday - 'Old' Brompton and Fort Amherst

Many thanks to my friend and blogmeister Chris Paton of British GENES for alerting me to an excellent new website Brompton - civilian life in a military village. Brompton is the area immediately outside the gates of Chatham Dockyard, and only became 'Old' Brompton with the growth of 'New' Brompton, which in turn became the town of Gillingham, so that 'Old' Brompton could become Brompton again.

If your ancestors had any connection with Chatham Dockyard, or any of the numerous military establishments in the area, this site could be of use to you - it's of more tha.assed through this area. The army, in particular the Royal Engineers, the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines all have long associations with Brompton. I have no ancestral connections, but I have a long-standing interest in both Gillingham and Chatham (grew up in the former, went to school in the latter) and the history of the Medway Towns in general.

There is a lot of good content on the Brompton website, including details of local pubs, schools and significant buildings. You can also comment on articles and add your own memories. There is a well-chosen page of links, one of which is to nearby Fort Amherst a series of tunnels in the chalk cliffs overlooking the dockyard. I used to pass this on the bus between Gillingham and Chatham hundreds of times without even realising it was there, but it has now been open to the public for a number of years. The website used to be rather cheesy and amateurish, but I'm pleased to say that it has been completely re-vamped and is greatly improved. As a tourist attraction it is overshadowed by Chatham's world-famous Historic Dockyard which is almost next door.

 

Mappy Monday - Chatham

This in an odd little map that I picked up several years ago, because I have an interest in the area covered by it; I lived in Gillingham and went to school in Chatham. I bought the map as a single sheet, and it is undated - like most maps of this kind it probably came from a book, and there is no clue to its provenance on the map itself. My guess would be that it comes from the early 19th century, or thereabouts, from the extent (or lack of it) of the built-up areas.

A number of features are indicated on the map, from two forts, Gillingham and Fort Pit, to a brick kiln and an oil mill, and even a pub, the Star, in the bottom right corner. The small cluster of dwellings that constituted Gillingham, and the even smaller Upnor are also shown, as are a few road names. But what interests me most is the lack of any label for arguably the most significant feature of the whole map, Chatham Royal Naval Dockyard. This is the area just to the north-west of the word 'Brompton'.

Although there is no key to the map, the faint dotted lines represent the parish boundaries, indicating 'part of Gillingham parish' and 'part of Chatham parish'. If you look closely you will see that the boundary between the two runs through the middle of the dockyard, so that part of Chatham Dockyard isn't in Chatham at all, but in Gillingham. The population of this are grew enormously during the 19th century, along with the growth of the dockyard itself, a major source of employment in the are until the late 20th century. In 1848 the completely new parish of Brompton was formed from parts of Chatham and Gillingham parishes, encompassing the whole of the dockyard, so that no part of it was in the parish from which it takes its name. Nowadays Brompton, including the dockyard, is part of Gillingham - a nice little piece of geographical trivia, which might come in handy in a pub quiz one day, you never know