HGB Ep. 609 - Chatham's Haunts

This Month in History - Christopher Wren Born

In the month of October, on the 20th, in 1632, Christopher Wren was born in East Knoyle, Wiltshire. Sir Christopher Wren was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist, and was widely considered a polymath. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Wren was tasked with rebuilding the city. His architectural portfolio was quite impressive, having designed over 50 churches, one of which being St. Bride's Church. That particular church was the inspiration of apprentice baker, Thomas Rich, who wanted to make an extravagant wedding cake. The baker imitated the design of St. Bride's Church which continues in the traditional style of wedding cakes today. Wren's architectural designs reshaped London's skyline after the Great Fire, but he is most well known for St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral is considered a masterpiece of English Baroque architecture. Known by its iconic dome, it signifies London's resilience after surviving both the Great Fire of London and the Blitz in WWII. After leaving many indelible marks, primarily in London, Christopher Wren died on February 25, 1723, in his sleep and is buried in the crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Chatham's Haunts (Chat Um)

Chatham in Kent has many haunted locations with most of them being connected to battle, war and the military. There were six forts built here to protect the Chatham Dockyard from attacks, particularly by Napoleon Bonaparte. Several of those forts are haunted and the Dockyard is probably the most haunted location in Chatham. Join us for the history and hauntings of Chatham! 

Chatham is located on the River Medway, making it a strategic location. The Royal Naval Dockyard was established here in 1568 by Queen Elizabeth I, but settlements date back to the Stone Age and archaeologists have uncovered Roman occupation and Saxon settlement. With the establishment of the dockyard, large amounts of manpower were needed and a village formed that grew through the years. Protection for the dockyard was desperately needed so Fort Amherst became the first fort built. This was followed by Fort Pitt and then Fort Luton, Fort Bridgewoods and Fort Borstal. Then Fort Horsted was built as the final fortification. The Dutch raided the dockyard in 1667 and inflicted severe damage. When it was decided that something more substantial than Upnor Castle needed to be built, bastions and ditches were constructed and these would be the beginnings of Fort Amherst. Official construction of Fort Amherst began in 1756. An infantry barracks was built in 1757. Two Redoubts were added in 1778 equipped with 14 42-pounders, 10 9-pounders, 8 6-pounders and 2 4-pounder guns. Amherst was expanded during the Napoleonic Wars and vast underground stores and tunnels were added with the use of convict labor from St. Mary's Island. Amherst was a formidable defense, but it was never put to the test. In 1820, much of the fort was considered obsolete so it became a training ground. People would come from all over to watch the practice sieges. Charles Dickens lived in Chatham and he described one of these sieges in his Pickwick Papers. The fort saw some use during World War II as an Air Raid Warning command post. In the 1980s, restoration on the fort was begun and eventually it was opened for tours and programs. These tours include Halloween ones.

Once Amherst opened to the public in 1983, ghost stories started flying. Many people have seen dark shadows that move and this is during the daytime. The reports are almost daily occurrences. Disembodied voices are heard, many times as whispers in the ears of tourists who go running and screaming. Other times, these sounds are a child's cry or a woman weeping. The child's crying coincides with visitors having tiny hand prints show up on their backs. Poltergeist activity is experienced throughout the fort. The most seen apparition is of a soldier who hangs out on the lower gun floor. There is another spirit that gives the soldier a run for his money and that is a faceless male ghost seen wearing a top hat and Victorian era coat. One story shared came from an electrician who was doing some work in a tunnel when he heard a fire bucket fall to the ground behind him. When he turned to look at it, he watched it slide across the floor. 

Fort Pitt was begun in 1805 and would be completed in 1819. It was named for Prime Minister William Pitt who died in 1806. The fort is shaped in an irregular polygon with bastions at each corner. Two outlying towers were also built and they were named Delce and Gibraltar. There were 10 18-pound cannons, and other armaments. Not only did this fort not see any action, but by the time it was finished the Napoleonic Wars had ended and there wasn't much purpose to the fort. So it was transformed into a military hospital. This would also become the headquarters of the Army Medical Department. The hospital closed in the 1920s and the buildings became a girls' grammar school. Much of the fort has been demolished, but what remains is part of the school. The fort has a military cemetery that mainly served the hospital that lies a quarter of a mile south of the fort. Many of the burials are from both World Wars. Charles Dickens nearly lived next door to the fort as a boy. Since this is a school, there haven't been ghost hunts here. There are rumors that it is haunted, but no definitive stories to share. 

Construction on Fort Luton began in 1876 and finished in 1892. The fort was named for the Luton Valley over which it looks. This is the smallest of the forts and was meant to guard the landward approaches to Chatham Dockyard. This too was finished too late to be of service during the Napoleonic Wars. Thus it had no arms and wasn't permanently manned. The fort was used for siege trials, which came to an end in 1907. Troops were housed here during World War I. After the war, it became a store. And then in 1938, the fort became a Gun Operations Room. 

Ghost Connections was the first group to investigate the fort. They wrote, "Due to the fact that it is being restored there were only certain areas open to us on this investigation. We set out with the intention of covering as much of the internal structures as possible in the evening. Session One: The team used the furthest magazine accessible from the left tunnel to commence a séance however due to the noises encountered would move out to the tunnel to continue this experiment. During this Dave moved to the main entrance end of the tunnel after Ian had walked the length of it to research noises that appeared to come from the tunnel. Session Two: The team located to the one restored casemate that is accessible. Session Three: The team returned to the same positions within the tunnel as at the end of session one but Dave positioned half way along the tunnel. Graham had the impression of someone standing between himself and Dave opposite him within the small magazine. The team initially heard a number of noises emanate from the tunnel. As this wasn't visible from the teams location Ian walked the length of the tunnel. The noises did not repeat themselves during this time as would be expected. Ian did manage to replicate something similar to the tone of the noise heard when he stepped on a loose brick within the the structure of the steps leading up to the main entrance from the tunnel itself. It was observed that communication could be had between the team easily at normal volume and without much echo. This we found surprising given the normal acoustics of tunnel structures we have investigated. Given this, Dave moved towards the further end of the tunnel in order to try and establish a source for the noise for sure by physical observation. Further noises were heard between Dave and the team within the tunnel. None of these were repeated on request although some were close. Dave had a song come into his head later identified as 'Mademoiselle From Armentières' and questioned the age of this song and its origins. The team did not know and it was decided to research this later. Dean had thoughts of a hot air balloon crashing and described it as red and white striped. He did not tell us about this until the break. Later recordings of this session would reveal voices unheard by the team at the time and one which clearly says “Allo Dean”.

Fort Bridgewoods became another in the circle of forts protecting the dockyard and this one was a landward approach. Construction began in 1890  and this too, would be finished after the threat from France was over. Imperial Germany was threatening though. Bridgewoods was polygonal in shape with earthen walls and there was a deep dry moat around it, but no fixed armaments were mounted anywhere. The main defense would come from field artillery. 

To the left of the entrance were casemates that held bunks and off the casemates were short tunnels leading to reservoirs and magazines. Convict labor did the construction and a new prison was built above the nearby city of Borstal to house that workforce. That's how the youth corrections system got its name. During the 1907 Siege Operations, Bridgewoods was damaged. During the World Wars, the fort had radar installed and was used as headquarters for anti-aircraft guns. A railway connected Fort Luton, Fort Horsted, Fort Bridgewoods and Fort Borstal to each other to facilitate construction by moving materials and men. Royal Engineers built it. Most of the fort was demolished in the 1970s. What was left is a Royal Mail depot. There are no ghost stories connected to this fort. 

Fort Borstal had construction begun in 1875 and would be completed in 1883. This protected the southern approach to the dockyard. There were underground tunnels and secret areas and this fort also had dry ditch surrounding it. A loopholed wall at the rear provided extra protection. The fort was polygonal in shape. The fort got its name from the town of Borstal. Borstal was used for training during the World Wars and AA gunners were placed here and remained until 1957. The fort was sold in 1990 with plans to restore it and open it as a tourist attraction, but those plans fell through. Today, it is being refurbished into a winery and occasional tours are offered. It really looks nice with what has been done inside. The entrance hall has wooden white walls with a black and white tiled floor. This fort also has no ghost stories associated with it.

Fort Horsted is located south of Chatham, Kent. The Fort is named for the nearby Horsted Valley, which was named for the 5th century warrior Horsa. He and his brother, Hengist, are considered the first leaders of the Anglo-Saxon settlers that came to England. They are attributed with founding Kent. Horsa died in battle in 455. Hengist ruled as King over Kent from 455 to 488 and it is believed the character Beowulf is based on him. Archaeologists have found artifacts from the Anglo-Saxon time, particularly helmets and spear heads. The fort never experienced any direct battle action, but it is believed that the land underneath it was a battlefield at one time more than likely connected to this time of the Anglo-Saxons. There were more than likely some warriors buried on the land. Construction on Fort Horsted started in 1879 and lasted for ten years. Forced labor did the work and was completed in 1889. They came from the newly build Borstal Prison, known today as HM Prison Rochester. Horsted was a land fort in the shape of a six sided arrow head, with each flank protected by machines guns. There are an extensive network of tunnels beneath the fort. In 1902, Horsted was armed with seven mounted machine guns. Anti-Aircraft guns were mounted at the fort during World War II. The fort was deserted in the 1990s and sat derelict. Today, the fort is mainly a business park that hosts tours.

People have claimed for decades that they feel uneasy at the fort. People claim to hear disembodied whispers and screams and shadow figures have been seen. Ghost Adventures visited in 2012 and they wrangled some locals into conducting a seance to see if they could agitate the spirits. The group did hear audible screams and booming sounds. They captured EVPs that said "they're coming" and "they're not doing this." The Spirit Box had "Hey Carl", "we can play", "me" and "back here" come through. Carl was someone who joined them on the hunt. The "back here" was a female voice with an English accent. The group also saw a dark shadow, had the EMF device going off and there was an unexplained light anomaly in a room where Carl and Aaron were investigating. Zak wore this jacket that was supposed to be sensitive to rises in temperature and it did light up red right after the group heard a disembodied voice.

The Maidstone Ghost Hunters offer ghost tours and they investigated in November of 2022 with a group of people. They went down into the underground tunnels, which were pitch black, and only had their flashlights to see their way. The group heard a shuffling noise down a dark alleyway. Colin Waterman was among the group and he told KentLive, "We did a Ouija board, we were calling out to see if there were any spirits in the area and a little child came through on the board. They spell out the letters, we said are you a little boy and it went to yes, he said that he died there when he was a little boy." Colin snapped a bunch of pictures during the investigation and we he got home, he discovered a face in one of the pictures. He said, "I skipped past the photo and went hang on a minute, and I zoomed in, lightened it up and it came up as a little face. I’ve got a few in the past but nothing as clear as that. You get the little goose pimples to think I was actually standing there and that was looking down at us and we didn’t see it. I was straight onto the crew members they were like, 'oh my god, I can’t believe it what a great photo'."  

The group Search Into the Supernatural shared about a ghost hunt they hosted on September 13, 2025 on Facebook writing, "As the evening progressed, we truly began to connect with the spirits of the fort, leading to some fascinating captures on our cameras. One highlight was when a gentleman in what appeared to be military uniform was caught on a guest’s camera in the exact same spot where we’ve previously encountered him. He certainly isn’t shy about making his presence known!" 

Chatham Dockyard is probably the most haunted location in Chatham. The Dockyard started as a center for wooden shipbuilding in 1567 and grew into a center for the new iron navy. The initial facility was below Chatham Church and had a wharf, storehouses, slips and was home to the warship Merlin, which was a pinnace of ten guns built in 1579. The Merlin would fight against the Spanish Armada in 1588. This Tudor Dockyard no longer exists and the present Chatham Dockyard would move to its location in 1618. The Navy needed dry docks and the former dockyard didn't have the room. So this dockyard had the dry docks and new storehouses, slips and housing for senior dockyard officers. The first action for ships coming from the dockyard would be trade wars with the Dutch. These battles would be fought in the English Channel and North Sea. The late 1600s brought conflict with France and Spain as Britain joined forces with Holland under William & Mary. It was at this time that the Chatham Dockyards would become the principal shipbuilding yard. Two Mast Ponds were added and this made it possible to make masts from fir logs. The process required seasoning the masts underwater. This was a traditional shipbuilding method also referred to as pickling and entailed putting freshly cut logs underwater saltwater for at least a year to leach out the sap and resins and this would keep the wood from decaying. A lengthy air-drying process would finish the process. 

Britain's oldest surviving intact naval building is here and this is the Commissioner's House, which was built in 1704. Many other buildings would join it such as the Officer's Terrace, Clocktower Building, Hemp House and Main Gate Dockyard Wall. There are around 100 buildings on the property today. The largest and finest ship built up until 1765, came out of this dockyard and that was the HMS Victory. The Battle of Trafalgar would end Napoleon's struggle to invade Britain and the HMS Victory was the flagship during that battle. This signified to the world that Britain had the greatest Navy and made it the global superpower of the early 1800s. 

With the Industrial revolution came new ironworking facilities. These were constructed in 1808 and one of Britain's first steam-powered saw mills was added in 1814.Another dry dock would be finished in 1820. There were more Admirals Offices added and a Royal Dockyard Church as well. The middle of the 19th century would see the biggest period of construction for the dockyards. Steam and Iron would be the focus and the first steam vessel was launched in 1832. This was the paddle sloop Phoenix. Any timber-hulled sailing ships had auxiliary steam engines added to them and this made up Britain's Black Battlefleet that would fight during the Crimean War. The first iron-built ship would be the Achilles and it was finished in 1863. The dockyard would struggle with these new iron ships because there were no longer constraints on size. Wooden vessels could only be built so big, but iron ships could be massive and the dockyard was soon too small. A new dockyard extension was created, but it mostly just was used for repairs. The last battleship constructed at the dockyard was in 1905 and this was the HMS Africa. The HMS Dreadnought would change how battleships were constructed and it was built at the Portsmouth Dockyard in 1906. That ended Chatham's shipbuilding, at least of battleships. Submarines, however, could be made at Chatham and this became the dockyards new focus. Fifty-seven submarines would be built here from 1908 to 1960. The dockyard had plenty of work during the World Wars and the dead were honored here as well. There is a Chatham Naval memorial at the dockyard to honor 8,000 men of the Chatham Division who lost their lives during World War I. This is above the Historic Dockyard. There are many barracks here including the Infantry Barracks, Marine Barracks, Artillery/Engineer Barracks, St. Mary's Barracks and Naval Barracks. The Dockyard closed in 1984. Most buildings are still standing. Some are used by the Universities at Medway and others are museums. Forty-seven are Scheduled Ancient Monuments.

Charles Dickens wrote of the dockyard in 1861, "Twelve hundred men are working at her now; twelve hundred men working on stages over her sides, over her bows, over her sterns, under her keel, between her decks, down in her hold, within her and without, crawling and creeping into the finest curves of her lines wherever it is possible for men to twist. Twelve hundred hammerers, measurers, caulkers, armourers, forgers, smiths, shipwrights; twelve hundred dingers, clashers, dongers, rattlers, clinkers, bangers, bangers, bangers!" There was a time when the Dockyard employed 10,000 men. 

The Chatham Dockyard offers ghost tours and people have had a lot of paranormal experiences. The main haunted locations include the Commissioner's House, the Ropery, and the Joiner's Workshop. As we said earlier, the Commissioner's House is the oldest structure here. There is a legend that claims a young woman committed suicide in the house by hanging herself from the back stairs after hearing her lover had been killed in battle and she now haunts it. She may be the Gray Lady who wanders the staircase and landing. Former Commissioners are here too. One of the spirits encountered is thought to belong to Peter Pett. He was the Commissioner at Chatham Dockyard from 1647 to 1667. The Dutch attacked the Medway in 1667 and to Pett's shame, he decided to protect his own property before protecting the King's. This lead to the worst defeat the British Navy ever experienced. Pett was thrown into the Tower of London for punishment.  

The Sail & Color Loft is another haunted building. Workers in the building reported seeing a woman wearing a long flowing dress that usually had the scent of lavender around her. Many of the machinists would claim to be touched on their shoulders by something they couldn't see. One of the former female overseers may be here and she is a mean one who bullies. She pushes people and when she appears, she has no feet and hovers.

Miles and miles of rope were made at the Dockyard over 400 years. The Ropery is one of only four remaining original Royal Navy Ropeyards still in operation. It's a really cool looking building and was built in 1728 and expanded in 1812. The building is said to be haunted by mischievous young ghosts who had been "Bobbin Boys." Ghostly women who are seen in the Spinning Rooms. There is an area near the Ropery where a young drummer boy was murdered and decapitated. He is seen as a headless ghost walking around. This area also has the sound of horses' hooves heard at night. The Joiner's Shop is today a modern business center, but was built in 1790. It originally made treenails, but then was used by the yards joiners. Fun Fact: The Resolute Desk that many US Presidents have used in the Oval Office was made here by Dockyard Joiners from the timbers of the HMS Resolute and that is why it has that name. The Joiner's Shop is haunted by dark spirits. Shadow figures are seen wandering around and people feel like something is oppressing them and that they aren't welcome. Visitors have been dragged from chairs. 
     
The show Most Haunted investigated during Season 4 and Yvette became so scared, she couldn't move. Derek seemed to become possessed by an evil spirit. The group heard disembodied footsteps and shuffling. Nick Richmond was a Duty Manager who lead ghost tours at the time and he told Most Haunted, "We've been doing ghost walks around the dockyard now for about 4 years, and we've experienced strange apparitions. People in the group have said they've seen people as we've been talking. In the Commissioner's House itself, I've been involved in two ghost watches and um we know that we have a presence of a woman who's affectionately known as Mary who took her own life in the house and she's come to me on numerous occasions. I'm always aware of her presence." 

Tour Guide Samantha Hartley told Most Haunted about an experience she had in the Joiner's Shop, "I've actually been pushed over. I've been rocked backwards and forwards as well, which is quite strange. The most common thing that happens is the cold spots, though. You manage to walk into a room, you'll feel the temperature drop dramatically, which is quite strange." Derek Acorah was the medium for the show and he said in the Commissioner's House, " I'm aware of at times a woman's energies. And it's not just here, but at this moment, I'm picking up on the residual a woman's energies moving between these two rooms. And this woman, um, come on, Sam, you give her that back to me again. This woman, if we can, I know it might sound awkward. If we go into that next room, I I'll pick up the energy stronger, I feel. Yes. You know, it's even more evident in this atmosphere here in this room because it's like the psychic antenna, so to speak, is activated here in this energy. So, she would spend a lot more time in this room, but she moves about. She doesn't come through the doors, she just goes through the wall. And this woman, her attitude, her personality is very bossy. And she was used to I feel it's only a feeling at the moment because she is not active here in this room yet, but I know she moves about this house. Absolutely. She is here all the time. And she's not just in visitation. I feel she is not a bad person, by the way. A good person."

All of these location have a long history in Chatham. Britain wouldn't have the Navy it does today without the Chatham Dockyards and the forts that protected it. Are these locations haunted? That is for you to decide!