The Historic Dockyard Chatham, Chatham

The Historic Dockyard in Chatham is an interesting place to take children, there are guided tours given by people in historic costumes, historic warships and a museum to visit. My son particularly enjoyed going on the warships and seeing what they were like. He also enjoyed looking through the periscope of the submarine that is situated there. There is an indoor and an outdoor play area for children and there is also a restaurant and a tea room at the dockyard providing food and drink. There are a number of picnic areas available and there are also plenty of toilets and baby changing facilities.

We thought the Chatham Dockyard would only be interesting to my son but were surprised to find it was a great day out for all including my daughters. Our favourite activity was going inside a submarine where we were astounded to find that up to 80 people had lived. The cramped conditions are unbelievable and we had chance to look inside their bunks (only a few inches across) and living quarters. The kitchen is tiny and my children could not believe how you could cook for so many people using it. The submarine has very steep steps and narrow walkways so it would not be suitable for small children or pushchairs. The Chatham Dockyard is massive and there are so many exhibitions that we couldn’t go round them all: my children were too tired. We did find time to learn all about rope which sounds boring but my children enjoyed it as the ropery was set in Victorian times. The children all got stuck in making their own rope and were able to appreciate life as a teenage rope maker working 14 hours a day. If your children like learning about history and seeing it for themselves, this is certainly a fantastic place to go. There wasn’t much to eat in the cafe so it is probably a good idea to bring a picnic. There is an indoor area for food with a soft play area for younger children.