600. Chatham High Street

Why is Chatham High-street both futuristic and riddled with the past? Why was it a magnet for historical figures such as King John, Charles II, Nelson and Charles Dickens, and the location for some of the most totemic moments in British history? Is it really a melting pot of every epoch - from the Roman invasion of Britain, to the Napoleonic Wars, and to the Second World War - and therefore the most historically significant high-street in the world? ______ Try Adobe Express for free now at https://www.adobe.com/uk/express/spotlight/designwithexpress?sdid=HM85WZZV&mv=display&mv2=ctv or by searching in the app store. Learn more at https://uber.com/onourway ______ The Rest Is History Club: Become a member for exclusive bonus content, early access to full series and live show tickets, ad-free listening, our exclusive newsletter, discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, and our members’ chatroom on Discord. Just head to therestishistory.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestishistory. For more Goalhanger Podcasts, head to www.goalhanger.com _______ Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producers: Tabby Syrett + Aaliyah Akude Video Producers: Harry Swan + Jack Meek + Charlie Rodwell Social Producer: Harry Balden Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Rochester and Chatham.

• 0:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  There's Dickens, there's naval stuff, there might be a mention of Horatio Nelson, there's people wrestling on the floor of a chapel or something. It is probably the most exciting, the most action-packed, the most blood-soaked, and in many ways, the most moving episode that we've ever done on The Rest Is History.

• 0:25Tom Holland?

  This is the long-awaited episode on Chatham High Street. I am making the pitch that this is the most historic street in England.

• 0:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Surely the world, Tom, no?

• 0:41Tom Holland?

  This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. Right now, all of Mint's plans are $15 per month, even unlimited. So go to mintmobile.com/history.

• 0:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required. $15 per month equivalent, taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only. Greater than 50GB may slow when network is busy. Includes up to 20GB of hotspot capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com.

• 1:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  Nelson reputedly drank here. So that's great, that definitely happened.

• 1:26Tom Holland?

  I imagine that there'll be a kind of a mood of cloistered peace, maybe amid the hurly-burly of Chatham, a reminder of the spirituality of the Middle Ages. And I think it'll be very moving for people. So let's go and see what's going on. That's what this is.

• 1:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  A C-Class destroyer. What's your favourite kind of destroyer? What class?

• 1:48Tom Holland?

  Probably B. If you're an enthusiast for vape shops, or possibly tattoo parlors, Chatham High Street now is very much the place to go. It's incredibly old. And also, I think, also very nice is the colour.

• 2:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  Gosh, that's well observed. That's the way I roll, Tom. That's the way I operate. If I can win and suck all the pleasure out of it for other people, so much the better. I've learnt that Chatham's not just a town, Tom, it's a community. And I think that's lovely.

• 2:15Tom Holland?

  That he called Chatham Dulsbury. So maybe we could use that as a title.

• 2:30Speaker 02

  Rochester and Chatham.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  Rochester and Chatham are two distinct places, but contiguous, except the interval of a very small marsh or vacancy between Rochester and Chatham.

• 2:54Speaker 02

  There is little remarkable in Rochester, except the ruins of a very old castle and an ancient, but not extraordinary cathedral, but the river and its appendices are the most considerable of the kind in the world, this being the chief arsenal of the Royal Navy of Great Britain. The buildings here are indeed like the ships themselves, surprisingly large, and in their several kinds they're beautiful. The warehouses, or rather, streets of warehouses and storehouses for laying up the naval treasure are the largest in dimension and the most in number that are anywhere to be seen in the world.

• 3:37Speaker 02

  The rope walk for making cables and the forges for anchors and other ironwork bear a proportion to the rest, as also the wet dock for keeping masts and yards of the greatest size, where they lie sunk in the water to preserve them, the boatyard, the anchoryard, all like the whole, monstrously great and extensive, and they're not easily described.

• 4:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  So that, Tom, was Daniel Defoe, who was a Londoner in the first volume of his tour through the whole island of Great Britain, published in seventeen twenty-four. It was a massive success, with the exception of Robinson Crusoe, it was by far his best-selling book, but never before has it been read out on the top of Rochester Castle on a grey and slightly dreary day in howling winds to an audience of boers.

• 4:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  Ward looking camera people. So very exciting scenes.

• 4:37Tom Holland?

  Yeah, because this is the long awaited episode on Chatham High Street, but not just Chatham High Street, intra Chatham, which is the stretch that leads us on to Rochester High Street. And we are on the 100 foot summit of the keep of Rochester Castle.

• 4:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  So Daniel Defoe, just for people who don't know, Defoe was, he wasn't just Britain's first novelist. He was Britain's, one of Britain's greatest journalists, wasn't he? And he did this tour of the whole island of Great Britain. Uh, and he published it just a couple of decades after the Act of Union had created a United Kingdom out of England and Scotland. So this is a moment in British history like no other. It's a point in which Britain is poised on the brink of absolutely enormous political, economic, diplomatic change.

• 5:27Tom Holland?

  Absolutely. And Defoe essentially loved change. He loved the idea of progress. Um, progress is very whiggish, isn't it? Um, and although Defoe ended up working essentially as a kind of spy for, for a Tory government, I think in his instincts, he was, he was all about the whigs. So as a young man, he had fought for the Duke of Monmouth against his uncle, the Catholic King James the second, and Monmouth Rebellion had gone disastrously badly. But Defoe had managed to avoid being hanged, which is good news for fans of, um, uh, Robertson Crusoe and 18th century travelogues around Britain. Um, he, he'd loved the Glorious Revolution when James the second got kicked out and replaced by the Protestant William and Mary.

• 6:11Tom Holland?

  And he'd been a big enthusiast for the Acts of Union between England and Scotland. Um, and had actively worked to promote them, actually.

• 6:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  And as you can probably tell from the accent, which is exactly how he spoke, his origins were in trade. He's a mercantile man, isn't he? So, um, he'd worked as a wine merchant. So that perhaps explains one, that's one reason why he's so keen on the Royal Navy. The idea of commerce, of Britannia ruling the waves. And of course he loves a naval dockyard.

• 6:40Tom Holland?

  He absolutely does. And just to say as well that, um, you know, he, he had. Sail perceived, he'd been a wine merchant. Dominic, you love a Portuguese wine depot in the 18th century, don't you? And Defoe was kind of always hanging out there. And so it's not surprising, really, that when he comes to Rochester, which he describes as having a castle and cathedral, he looks at it as being rather boring and old. And Chatham, which is where the royal dockyards are, he is all over that. He thinks it's incredible. He thinks it's absolutely wonderful. And I think that that's why that passage describing Rochester and Chatham is absolutely brilliant for pinpointing this idea of Britain as being on the kind of cusp of incredible change.

• 7:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, so there's a world of warehouses and dockyards and battleships and global trade and free trade and all that kind of stuff. And this is the sort of, this is the central axis. This is the hub of that world, isn't it? Rochester and Chatham, these kind of twin towns across the Medway. So Tom, give us a little bit of a tour d'horizon.

• 7:43Tom Holland?

  So the reason that we're here is obviously because I've bullied you into doing it. You've put up a heroic three-year rearguard action, but at last we're here in Rochester, in Chatham.

• 7:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Do you know what, ladies and gentlemen? When I look at Tom's notes, and now that I'm here on site, I could not be more excited. I'm absolutely dogged with excitement because there are so many delights to come in this episode. There's Dickens, there's naval stuff, there might be a mention of Ferratio Nelson, there's people wrestling on the floor of a chapel or something. It is probably the most exciting, the most action-packed, the most blood-soaked, and in many ways, the most moving episode that we've ever done on The Rest Is History.

• 8:21Tom Holland?

  The reason that I wanted to do it is that I've been walking the Saxon shore way, which is a kind of national route that follows the coastline of Kent, which for those people not familiar with the geography of England is the bit in the southeast that sticks out into the sea. And I realised coming here that Rochester High Street becomes Chatham High Street. And I felt that the way in which you go from kind of where we've got an Iron Age hillfort, we've got a Roman bridge, we've got an Anglo-Saxon cathedral, we've got a Norman castle, and yet you end up with Chatham docks, this kind of great nerve centre of British imperial expansion. I

• 9:01Tom Holland?

  I am making the pitch that this is the most historic street in England.

• 9:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Surely the world, Tom, no?

• 9:10Tom Holland?

  Well, I think in Britain, you can make a case for the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, which has Holyrood and Edinburgh Castle and the grave of Adam Smith and all kinds of things like that. But this were, if you want a sense of the sweep and span and process of change that manifests itself through English history, Rochester High Street, Chatham High Street, if you think of it as a single road, I mean, is absolutely fantastic. And you, as Defoe says, Rochester is all about the kind of traditional England of tourist brochures.

• 9:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 9:40Tom Holland?

  Chatham is about energy and industry and transformation. And you could say, I think, that in the 18th and 19th centuries, it's a kind of cross between the Pentagon and Silicon Valley.

• 9:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  And Chatham, right now, I mean, it's retained that reputation, has it, hasn't it, Tom, as a glittering cosmopolitan? It's on the very cusp of, it's on the, it's on the front line of technological and social change, no?

• 10:05Tom Holland?

  I fear not. So the Chatham Dockyards shut in 1984. And I think it would be fair to say that if you're an enthusiast for vape shops or possibly to two parlors, Chatham High Street now is very much the place to go.

• 10:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  I actually love both of those things, so it's great.

• 10:25Tom Holland?

  It's probably not at the cutting edge of naval technology now in the way that it used to be. So I think it's fair to say that Chatham has seen happier days. And in that, again, of course, it's an exemplar of British history, because obviously Britain is not the great power that it was in the 18th and 19th centuries. And so if Chatham exemplifies the rise to global greatness of Britain, there's also a sense in which its current state tells you about Britain's relative decline.

• 10:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  But before we do some history, why don't we have a little excursion into geography? We don't do enough geography on the rest of this history. And Theo, in particular, is a passionate aficionado of geography. So, Tom, talk to Theo and indeed the listeners about geography.

• 11:07Tom Holland?

  Yeah, well, geography, of course, so important. The study of history because so often geography is historical destiny and that is definitely the case with Rochester and Chatham. So just to to set the geographical scene for people who may not be au fait with with North Kent. So we are just south of the Thames Estuary, which is the kind of the the the stretch of water that extends from London outwards into the North Sea. So we've got Essex to the north and we in Kent on the south, south coast of the the Thames Estuary. And and we are standing beside the Medway,

• 11:50Tom Holland?

  which is a river that rises in Kent and flows northwards out into the Thames Estuary. And Rochester and Chatham both stand on the Medway and would not have come into existence without the Medway. So to talk about Rochester first, why, why is Rochester where it is? Basically, because it is the lowest bridging point on the on the river Medway. So essentially, if you want to get across the Medway, Rochester is the place to come. And in that, its relationship to the Medway is equivalent to to London's relationship to the Thames. And as with London, it's the Romans who build London Bridge. So here, it's the Romans who build the first

• 12:35Tom Holland?

  bridge over the Medway. But even before the Romans come, there is a trackway here that leads from, you know, over the the southeastern tip of Kent, up towards the River Thames. And this is the, this is the the forwarding point. So kind of very much kind of Iron Age highway. And this is the highway that in due course will will come to be called Watling Street, one of the great roads of of England. And so where is that, Tom? Is that right here? Yeah. So that bridge that you can see there, if you're watching this on YouTube, and essentially Chatham High Street, Rochester High Street, that's all part of Watling Street. So essentially, when the Romans under Julius Caesar land here in fifty five and then fifty four B.C., in fifty four B.C., Caesar advances towards the Thames, he would almost certainly

• 13:19Tom Holland?

  have come this way. And again, we can be pretty confident that in AD 43, when Claudius sends three legions here under Aulis Plautius, again, they would have come here. And in fact, we know that there is a great two-day battle on the Medway, perhaps here, more likely a little bit further south. And Vespasian, who will go on to become the emperor, he crosses the river with his Batavian cavalry, who have this extraordinary ability to swim in full armour. So very exciting scenes.

• 13:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's unbelievably exciting, and I cannot describe it. Such a shame that the listeners, and even the people watching on YouTube, can't actually be here, because the air is electric with excitement, isn't it? To be here in this spot where it actually happened. Unbelievable history.

• 14:02Tom Holland?

  Well, can I just crank up the excitement?

• 14:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 14:05Tom Holland?

  By revealing the name that the Romans give to the town that they built here. It's Durobrivae, which means almost certainly stronghold by the bridge. I mean, couldn't be more exciting.

• 14:18Dominic Sandbrook?

  And both Watling Street and this bridge built by the Romans survive the Roman occupation, don't they? Basically because they're just so well located. So if you're going to Dover, if you are coming from Dover, if you're going to London, you're going to go this way.

• 14:33Tom Holland?

  Yes. So it's absolutely the kind, it's essentially, it's the great road that links London and everything that lies beyond London to Dover and therefore to the continent.

• 14:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  But enough of Rochester. There's been a lot of Rochester so far. Where's Chatham? Talk to me about Chatham.

• 14:47Tom Holland?

  Well, the view of Chatham is on the other side of the keep where we're standing now.

• 14:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  I'm looking at it now. It's gorgeous. It's absolutely stunning.

• 14:53Tom Holland?

  I think, Dominic, we should get Harry to move the cameras and go over on the other side of the keep.

• 14:58Dominic Sandbrook?

  Do.

• 15:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  So as you can see, if you are watching on Spotify or on YouTube, we have now moved to the other side of the castle. And the sense of drama, tension and jeopardy is becoming more acute with every moment for two reasons. Number one, the wind has now reached gale-force levels. And secondly, the staff of the castle are having to fight off a huge throng downstairs. Two different groups. One, a group of Rest is History club members who've just signed up at therestishistory.com and have heard that Tom Holland is here, they're very excited, and the other, a group of schoolchildren whom Tom has forbidden from coming to the top of the castle, ruining their outing, their day, and quite possibly their love of history forever.

• 15:44Dominic Sandbrook?

  But Tom, tell us, tell everybody watching on Spotify and YouTube, why you have barred these children from coming to the top of the castle, so that you can talk about Chatham?

• 15:52Tom Holland?

  Well, I will try to do it over the sound of the sobbing of distraught 12-year-old history fans. But it's important for us to be on the summit of this 100-foot Norman keep, because we've come to the other side, and now you can see the sweep of the Medway. And we talked about how the Medway is key to Rochester, it's also the key to Chatham. So Chatham is closer to the sea than Rochester, which means that it is much more convenient should you be sailing an enormous Tudor ship, which is what starts to happen in the 16th

• 16:31Tom Holland?

  century, because England is expanding its global interests, trade, piracy, ultimately conquest. And the Elizabethan court starts to realise that it's ideally situated between London and the kind of the shipping lanes that lead to the world. So in 1568, Elizabeth I formally institutes Chatham as a royal dockyard, and from that point on, it plays a fundamental role in the growth of the Royal Navy and the emergence of first English and then British engagement with the broader world, which of course ultimately

• 17:15Tom Holland?

  will result in the establishment of the British Empire. And obviously, that is a process that takes centuries, and the emergence of Chatham as what it becomes in the 18th and into the 19th centuries, the most futuristic place on the face of the planet, is a huge, huge, long-term, government-sponsored plan, of the kind perhaps you might say that the British state has slightly forgotten how to engage in.

• 17:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  But born as much of failure as success, right? Because... Where we are now, the Medway, is the location for one of the most disgraceful, perfidious, ultimately insignificant moments in world history, isn't it? Which is the Dutch raid on the Medway. They're bad people and they really let themselves down.

• 17:59Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so that's in June 1667 and it's part of a series of wars that England and the Dutch Republic are waging against each other. This is the second bout of war under the reign of Charles II, who's just come back after his exile in the Netherlands and we'll be hearing more about that in due course. And the Dutch and Charles II aren't getting on well at all in the 1660s. And as we say, in 1667, the Dutch sail up the Medway and they find that the defences in place to protect the dockyards and all the ships that are at anchor there just aren't up to scratch and they burn or capture 13 English ships and, Dominic, in a shocking

• 18:43Tom Holland?

  display of thieving. They haul away HMS Royal Charles, which is the flagship of the English Navy, and disgracefully, it's still on display in the Rijksmuseum to this day.

• 18:54Dominic Sandbrook?

  Do you want to know what Daniel Defoe said?

• 18:56Tom Holland?

  Yeah, tell me what he said.

• 18:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  I know you like a bit of Daniel Defoe. He had, he had pungent views about this. He said, "This alarm gave England such a sense of the consequence of the River Medway and of all the docks and yards at Chatham."

• 19:07Tom Holland?

  From Birmingham, Dominic.

• 19:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  This alarm, he changed his voice because it tore the country.

• 19:11Tom Holland?

  Yeah, it picked up.

• 19:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  It picked up different, it picked up different accents. He said, "This alarm gave England such a sense of the consequence of the River Medway and of all the docks and yards at Chatham and of the danger the Royal Navy lay exposed to there, that all these doors which were open then are locked up and sufficiently barred since that time? And 'tis not now in the power of any nation under heaven." Nation, I don't know what happened there. "No, though they should be masters at sea, unless they were masters at land too at the same time, to give us such another affront." I don't actually know what that last bit means because I was just so distracted by the accent. What does he mean?

• 19:47Tom Holland?

  What he means is that... The raid on the Medway was such a shock to the British state that absolutely impregnable defences were put in place all the way along the line of the redway up to Chatham and particularly at the mouth of the estuary going into the Medway. And essentially, he's saying that even if naval supremacy were to pass from Britain, people still wouldn't be able to force their way in. And the only conceivable way in which Chatham could be destroyed would be if there was a land invasion. And Defoe is right, because Chatham stands impregnable throughout the Seven Years' War, throughout the Napoleonic Wars, and we talked in our episodes on Nelson about how Napoleon's plan for England, if he could only get his troops across, was to march straight on Chatham and destroy it.

• 20:30Tom Holland?

  I mean, it would be the equivalent of knocking out, I don't know, a kind of nuclear defence system or something like that today. And it survives the First World War, it survives the Second World War, and throughout those conflicts and also throughout the long decades of peace in the 19th century, Chatham, I guess, is both the symbol and the fulcrum of Britain's role as a great global power.

• 20:56Dominic Sandbrook?

  So before that, Tom, just quickly, because the schoolchildren are fighting their way up the stairs, Britain was, of course, herself part of a great empire, and it was a kind of node in the imperial network of the Roman Empire. And actually, we've been looking down at Watling Street and the Great Bridge, haven't we? Just say a little bit more about that bridge, because you love that bridge.

• 21:13Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so as you said, the first bridge over the Medway, probably a pontoon bridge, and then the Romans develop it with great stone piers and kind of wooden planks across it, and that bridge endures well after the collapse of Roman power. And it's there probably up until 8th or 9th centuries, when it gets rebuilt again. And the reason that it's so important, as we said, it's the quickest way to get from Dover, which is the shortest crossing point from the continent, up to London. And so it's not surprising that in the wake of the Roman withdrawal, Rome makes contact again with what's become Anglo-Saxon England, not with military means but with spiritual means, when at the end of the 6th century, St Augustine...

• 21:58Tom Holland?

  Arrives with a band of monks to convert the pagan Anglo Saxons. And his original plan is to get to London and establish an Archbishop Rick there. But they don't because London is kind of hostile territory. So famously they stop in Canterbury and that's why the head of the Church of England is in Canterbury to this day. And that is where the first cathedral in Anglo Saxon England is built. But the second Anglo Saxon cathedral, which is founded in six oh four, is down there from where we are standing. And it's founded in Rochester by a guy called Justice, who like Augustine is from Rome. And it's incredibly old.

• 22:43Tom Holland?

  I mean, it says it's not very interesting, but it, I mean, it is interesting in the sense that, you know, this takes us right the way back to the earliest days of the Roman church in England. Back to the age of Gregory the Great. And I, you know, I find it very moving.

• 23:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  You love it.

• 23:03Tom Holland?

  Sense of a living link.

• 23:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, you love that, don't you?

• 23:05Tom Holland?

  I do.

• 23:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  It was given to Odo, a buyer by William the Conqueror, no?

• 23:09Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so Anglo Saxon England comes to an end with the Norman conquest. And in our episode on that, we talked about how William from Hastings goes to Dover and captures it and then goes to London. And he comes via Rochester. So he sees that it's an absolutely kind of crucial place to seize. And so he, his, his half brother, Odo, who is a bishop, but very fond of fighting. So famously, you know, as a bishop, you're not allowed to shed blood. So he kills people with a, with a club or a mace. And William gives Rochester as a Bishop Rick to Odo. But Odo is, he's a very bad man. He is very treacherous and he gets chucked out.

• 23:52Tom Holland?

  And so William gives it to this remarkable man who is called, it's not Gandalf, it's Gundalf, but quite similar. And he has a slightly, you know, it's Gandalf-esque role in William's career. Because he's a man who, who achieves extraordinary things. He's very, he's very, very smart, very proficient at creating things. So he's a great architect. He has, he's a great engineer.

• 24:20Tom Holland?

  And it's Gandalf who builds the White Tower in London, which becomes the kind of the basis for the Tower of London. And in 1083, he starts work here in Rochester on renewing the Anglo-Saxon cathedral that had basically kind of fallen to pieces. It was very decrepit. Not much of what he actually built survives, except for a place called Gandalf's Tower, which annoyingly we can't actually see from here. But anyway, I mean, people who are interested in Gandalf, you can still see his tower.

• 24:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  So this is great podcasting.

• 24:51Tom Holland?

  It really is. And it gets remodelled throughout the Middle Ages. It has a particularly bad time in the 13th century, when King John, England's worst king, loots it. And then Simon de Montfort, the self-styled father of the English Parliament, he loots it as well. And I think there's always a sense that it's a little bit shabby, a little bit shabby. So that's how Peeps described it in the 16th century. We heard Defoe saying it was ancient but not extraordinary. And again, I mean, I think that's kind of fair.

• 25:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  But pick out some highlights. So there's a nice crypt.

• 25:27Tom Holland?

  There's a crypt, so that was built by Gandalf. So Gandalf fans can see that as well as his tower.

• 25:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  You're excited about the Great West Door, aren't you? Very excited.

• 25:34Tom Holland?

  Yeah, very, very.

• 25:35Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's got Christ and it's got justice and someone else.

• 25:37Tom Holland?

  King Ethelbert, who welcomed Augustine and his missionaries to Kent.

• 25:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  And there's another lovely ceiling with some green men. You love a green man. But most of all, the thing you were telling me, which I was, I found actually quite moving. You said one of the most, something that had brought you closer to the dimension of the supernatural than ever before, was you went in 2019, you played mini golf in the centre of the cathedral, didn't you?

• 26:02Tom Holland?

  Yes, so in 2019, following in the footsteps of St. Justice and Bishop Gandalf, the cathedral authority set up a mini golf course in the nave of the cathedral.

• 26:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, can I tell people what you, so Tom texted me after he played golf in the cathedral and he said, Dominic, while playing adventure golf, I really felt that I...

• 26:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  I reflected on the bridges that need to be built in our own lives and in the world today.

• 26:30Tom Holland?

  And Dominic, do you know what's amazing about that reflection that I had?

• 26:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 26:33Tom Holland?

  Is that a few days later.

• 26:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 26:35Tom Holland?

  The, um, the, the diocese of Rochester put out a message saying that we hope that while playing adventure golf, visitors will reflect on the bridges that need to be built in their own lives and in our world today.

• 26:46Dominic Sandbrook?

  So once again, yet again, the diocese of Rochester has been hacking our texts. Unbelievable. So on that bombshell, Tom, let's just move on very quickly to talk about Rochester Castle before we descend and allow the schoolchildren up here. Tell me about the history of Rochester Castle. So this is what Norman originally?

• 27:01Tom Holland?

  Yeah, so, um, Defoe in that bit you read, I mean, he was very rude about the cathedral, perhaps not unfairly, but he said that the, the castle was just a ruin, which, I mean, we're standing up here and you can see it's clearly not a ruin. Um, it, it, we've got a, a sign there saying it's unsafe for humans, a hundred foot drop beneath. Generally, this, I mean, this is very, very impressive structure. And it's not surprising because where you have, um, a very important river crossing, you want to have a very strong defensive system so that you can keep control of it. And so it's not surprising that, as you say, yes, it is William who builds the first castle here, because that's what the Normans are doing. Um, and again, he gives the, you know, he's given the cathedral to Odo.

• 27:43Tom Holland?

  He also tells Odo to, to, to build a castle, which Odo does. It's made of wood, but when Odo gets chucked out for behaving badly and, and treacherously towards his half brother, he hands the responsibility for the castle over to Bishop Gundolph. And we've said how Gundolph is a tremendous architect, a tremendous engineer. He gets to work building a, a castle out of stone masonry, probably one of the first stone castles to be built by the Normans after the conquest. Um, and. It's because of that, I was just reading up in the Bodleian before we came up here, that Gundolf apparently is recognised by the Corps of Royal Engineering as the man

• 28:24Tom Holland?

  who established them. So they kind of trace a line of continuity all the way back to, through the Middle Ages, back to Gundolf. And that, I guess in part, is due to the reputation of the Tower of London, but also due to this, because although the keep where we're standing now was built in the 12th century, the walls are Gundolf's. And this keep is, I mean, is amazing. When you come into Rochester on the train, you can see it kind of looming up. I think it's the tallest keep in England, one of the tallest keeps in the whole of Europe. And again, it was built by not just a bishop, but by an archbishop. So Rochester got given to the Archbishop, Rick of Canterbury, in the 12th century.

• 29:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  We've had it in the show before. It's been in The Rest Is History.

• 29:11Tom Holland?

  It has. So it featured in our episode on the Peasants' Revolt, misnamed, but, you know, this great rebellion of people in Essex, but also in Kent. And when the rebels want to march on London, they have to seize the castle first, because it's the great key to the road that leads to London. And they manage to storm the castle, and they capture the Castellan, the guy in charge of it, and they take him hostage. And when they get to London and they want to negotiate with Richard II and his government, the Castellan of Rochester Cathedral is the guy that they use to communicate between the rebels and the royal authorities.

• 29:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  And basically, through Rochester Castle's history, loads of big names have been here, haven't they? So King John of France, when he was captured by the Black Prince, he was brought through Rochester, made a donation to the cathedral.

• 30:03Tom Holland?

  Yes.

• 30:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's nice.

• 30:04Tom Holland?

  Henry V, after returning in triumph from Agincourt, you know, he has to get to Calais, crosses to Calais, rides the Great Road up to London and passes through Rochester. And- He is not the last king to make a memorable procession through Rochester, because there is another one who has left a real mark on the city. We can't see that mark that he left from up here. So I think we should wind our way down the stairs, past the sobbing schoolchildren, and allow them to come up here to the top. And we will go down and go to this site, which commemorates the arrival in Rochester in 1660 of Charles II.

• 30:53Dominic Sandbrook?

  Tom, Restoration House Rochester. That's where we are right now. An absolutely gorgeous example of 17th century architecture. We've just been shown around by the owner, Jonathan Wilmot. Amazing artworks, furniture and whatnot that you can see if you're watching on Spotify or on YouTube. But why are we here?

• 31:14Tom Holland?

  Well, as you say, an amazing 17th century house. Origins going back to late 15th century, 16th century, all kind of patched together. So Pevsner rather rudely described it as being all highly peculiar and undisciplined. But I think it's unbelievably atmospheric, very different vibe to being on top of a Norman castle. But we are here because the most famous person who stayed here was Charles II, who had been in exile throughout the Restoration. Cromwell dies, people don't know what to do. So they say, well, let's try and bring Charles II back. So he lands in Dover. He's been staying in the Dutch Republic. Now he's back in English soil and he's processing towards London. And he spends the night of 28th of May, 1660, here.

• 31:59Tom Holland?

  And the next morning he gets up, it's his birthday and he goes off into London. And so hence the name, Restoration House.

• 32:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  But there's a brilliant literary connection, isn't there? And a connection with one of Rochester's, one of this area's favourite sons. Because am I not right in saying that Charles Dickens used this house, where we're sitting right now, as the inspiration for Satys House, which is of course Miss Havisham's house in his novel Great Expectations?

• 32:26Tom Holland?

  This podcast, we can say 100% this was this was the inspiration.

• 32:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  It is said that.

• 32:32Tom Holland?

  No, no, Dickens was seen leaning on a kind of on a looking in at it. While writing Great Expectations, I think we can say 100%. And actually, for those who are looking on YouTube or Spotify, if you imagine this setting covered in cobwebs and a mouldering wedding cake in the background, I think you can absolutely imagine Miss Havisham jilted at the altar in her decayed wedding dress, kind of gliding around like a ghoul. Poor Pip.

• 32:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 33:00Tom Holland?

  You know, the little blacksmith's boy, feeling very coarse and sorry for himself.

• 33:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Well, Great Expectations is very close to my heart, Tom, because I won the school public speaking and reading competition four years in a row with the opening of Great Expectations.

• 33:15Tom Holland?

  Four years in a row?

• 33:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Four years in a row, the same reading.

• 33:17Tom Holland?

  God.

• 33:17Dominic Sandbrook?

  Joyless.

• 33:18Tom Holland?

  Were you allowed to do that?

• 33:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Not really. It was considered against the spirit, but not the letter of the law.

• 33:23Tom Holland?

  That really does seem like cheating.

• 33:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  By about the third or fourth time, the head of English said, you're really ruining this for everybody else. With this with this reading that is unbeatable because it's such a brilliant reading.

• 33:34Tom Holland?

  But you must be excited though to be here.

• 33:36Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, but you know, you come home. That's the way I roll, Tom. That's the way I that's the way I operate. If I can, if I can win and suck all the pleasure out of it for other people, so much the better. Let's talk about Dickens.

• 33:47Tom Holland?

  The reason that he's kind of hanging out here, gazing in at the windows.

• 33:50Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 33:51Tom Holland?

  Is because he actually had a house just outside Rochester, the other side of the Medway, which was called Gad's Hill Place.

• 33:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 33:59Tom Holland?

  And he lived there for the last 14 years of his life. And he absolutely loved Rochester. Basically, everywhere you go in Rochester, you see Dickens allusions. So restaurants, cafes, whatever.

• 34:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  We've just been to the cafe, Jaggers Cafe, yeah.

• 34:12Tom Holland?

  Yeah. And there are kind of little signs saying Dickens, you know, this house was where so and so lived or whatever. And Gad's Hill, the house outside Rochester where he lived, he got given a Swiss chalet by one of his friends and it kind of arrived like an Ikea pack in various boxes. And he want Dickens wanted to assemble it at a viewpoint where he could look out at the sea. So the bottom of his. And there was quite a busy road. So he dug a tunnel under the road and then he assembled the Swiss chalet on the far side of the road. So that in the second floor where he had his study, he could look out at the sea and be inspired by it. And that chalet apparently is still, you can still see it, just off Rochester High Street. So if you like Dickens, I mean,

• 34:57Tom Holland?

  there's no end of Dickensian fun facts here. And the other famous thing associated with Dickens here is that it's the setting for his last novel, which he never completed, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and the opium addict and cathedral organist John Jasper, who almost certainly is the murderer of Edwin Drood, or is Edwin Drood dead? Who knows? He lived on, on one of the gates that's just below the castle where we've been. And the Rochester in Edwin Drood is called Cloisterham. And the Dickens description of it is very similar to Defoe. So he says, "A city of another and a bygone time is Cloisterham. All things in it are of the past." So there's

• 35:39Tom Holland?

  that sense of Rochester as a place where, you know, the history of England is invested.

• 35:43Dominic Sandbrook?

  The layers of history.

• 35:45Tom Holland?

  But as Dickens also knew, the same cannot be said of Chatham. And he knew Chatham very well because he had spent the formative years of his childhood there.

• 35:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  And that's because his father, John Dickens, had worked as a clerk there, hadn't he, in the naval pay office? And so Dickens lived there from, what, the age of five to the age of 11?

• 36:03Tom Holland?

  Yes, and thought it was wonderful.

• 36:06Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 36:06Tom Holland?

  Had beautiful, kind of incredible childhood memories of it, thought it was amazing. And then years later, in 1860, when he was 48, he came back and, you know, it was his first visit to Chatham since he'd been a boy. And he wrote up about it, expressing essentially his disappointment that it wasn't quite as amazing as he remembered it. And he was so disappointed, and listeners to this podcast will be thrilled to know this, that he called Chatham Dullesborough. So maybe we could use that as a title.

• 36:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 36:33Tom Holland?

  For this episode. So, but, but then after a day touring Chatham, AKA Dulsbury, he left in a slightly more benignant mood. So he wrote, "When I went alone to the railway to catch my train, I was in a more charitable mood with Dulborough than I had been all day. And yet in my heart, I had loved it all day too. Ah, who was I that I should quarrel with the town for being changed to me when I myself had come back so changed to it? All my early readings and early imaginations dated from this place, and I took them away so full of innocent construction and garless belief, and I brought them back so worn and torn, so much the wiser and so much the worse."

• 37:15Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, Tom, that's lovely. That's a lovely reading. And actually, that inspires me to, to go to Chatham. So I think we should head off from Restoration House. I have to say, what an amazing house this is and how royally we've been looked after. I actually, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say, I don't think I've ever been to a location with the Rest is History that I have enjoyed more and that will live in my memory for longer than Restoration House.

• 37:38Tom Holland?

  Well, do you know, I'm, I'm sat here looking at you. You're in a magnificent period armchair. Behind you is a ticking grandfather clock. I kind of think you should have this vibe for every recording of the Rest is History.

• 37:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think I kind of do already, no?

• 37:51Tom Holland?

  I don't think you do quite.

• 37:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Ah, disappointing.

• 37:53Tom Holland?

  But anyway, talking of, talking of positive vibes, let's head off to Chatham High Street.

• 38:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Welcome back to the Rest is History. And very excitingly, we have now moved from Rochester to Chatham. Tom, let's walk up this lovely little slope here and discuss why you brought us here.

• 38:14Tom Holland?

  Well, Dominic, if you look here, it reads Gundolph Road. So we are on Gundolph Road. Gundolph, very much friend of the show, the founder of the Royal Engineers, William the First's go-to bishop, the guy who designed Rochester Cathedral and the castle. And he got his hands on Chatham as well, because although Chatham is very much a kind of 18th century, 19th century place. That's its heyday. There was a village here in the Middle Ages and Gundell founded a hospital for the poor and leprous and they would be brought along the river, which is just down there. And then there would be kind of special passageways that would thread up from the river to bring them to the hospital because nobody wanted to come in

• 38:59Tom Holland?

  touch with the leper and only the leprous were allowed to go up these. The hospital is long gone, but there is one remainder of it and it is this chapel that we're looking at here. So the front of the chapel, clearly very Victorian. This is by Sir Gilbert Scott, who designed the Albert Memorial and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and these kind of great monuments of neo Gothic Victoriana. But if we go round the back, we will find a bit of the original 12th century chapel. And I like to think that even though we are

• 39:36Tom Holland?

  here in the heart of Chatham, the swirl of 21st century Britain, maybe inside this chapel, there is a little haven, a little reminder of the age of faith. And we will see what we find inside.

• 40:01Tom Holland?

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• 40:44Tom Holland?

  You can see this entrance. This, the eastern section, there are still bits of the original 12th century chapel. So if we go in through here, we can see, you know, because I imagine that there'll be a kind of a mood of cloistered peace, maybe amid the hurly burly of Chatham, a reminder of the spirituality of the Middle Ages, and I think it'll be very moving for people. So let's go and see what's going on.

• 41:28Tom Holland?

  Well, this is, this is unexpected because...

• 41:38Tom Holland?

  So this is, this is maybe not quite what I was expecting. So we should, we should maybe describe for people what we're seeing. And Dominic, is this, is this...

• 41:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah. This, to me, very much speaks of medieval spirituality. There are about four people writhing and grappling on the ground. So if you can't, if you're not watching on Spotify or YouTube, that's what I'm looking at, basically somebody's thighs and they're wrapped around another person's neck.

• 42:07Tom Holland?

  And behind, behind them are two signs reading granite gym. And this ancient sanctuary, this repository of medieval spirituality, seems to have become a gym. So I like to think that this probably isn't what Bishop Gundolf wanted, but whatever. It's progress. But Dominic, just to say, that is the, so Harry, behind you, that is what remains of the 12th century chapel.

• 42:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  Those people not watching, pointing at a bit of wall.

• 42:43Tom Holland?

  With...

• 42:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  I don't know what else to say.

• 42:46Tom Holland?

  Well, it's, well, what I will say is that there aren't people kind of wrestling underneath the, under that, so maybe showing a bit of respect. There is a sofa, isn't there?

• 42:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  There is. So anyway, that's progress. So we have crossed the street and we've come a little bit further forward in time. So we're now standing, for those people who are not watching on YouTube or Spotify, we are standing in front of some lovely little brick arms houses. And Tom, these were built in 1592 and they're associated with a very famous name in kind of Tudor seafaring history.

• 43:20Tom Holland?

  Yes, so this is the hospital of Sir John Hawkins in Chatham. It is the single oldest Royal Navy charity, the oldest Royal Navy hospital. And as the name of the hospital suggests, it was founded by Sir John Hawkins, who was a cousin of Sir Francis Drake. He was first the treasurer of Elizabeth's Navy, then its controller. He played a key role in establishing not just Chatham, but the the English Navy as a force to be reckoned with. And he was very anxious about what would happen to decrepit sailors, sailors who had kind of lost their fortunes or whatever.

• 44:01Tom Holland?

  And so he, in his will, he set aside some property to endow a hospital, which makes him sound one of history's good guys. But there is a slight complication which is hinted at on the the website for the hospital of Sir John Hawkins, where it confesses that a lot of the money that Sir John Hawkins made, which enabled him to fund this hospital, was made in the slave trade. And so this this avowal is made, although not out of step with the societal norms of his time, the governors fully acknowledged the abhorrent and brutal nature of this vile activity and regret Sir John's involvement profoundly.

• 44:41Tom Holland?

  And then there's a kind of big, however, he was an outstanding seaman navigator, naval administrator and benefactor of naval veterans, all of which, and both of those things are clearly true.

• 44:52Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 44:52Tom Holland?

  And so this is absolutely the kind of place that focuses some of the ambivalences and complexities of Britain's.

• 45:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  Everybody loves focusing on ambivalence. And he's a great Spanish Armada man, isn't he?

• 45:06Tom Holland?

  All of that. He's, I mean, he's ruffs, ruffs, beards.

• 45:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 45:10Tom Holland?

  You know, playing bowls, all of that. Yes. I mean, he's, you know, he is one of the great kind of. The Victorians loved him. They loved the kind of idea that the sea dogs of under Elizabeth the first had been the prototype for Britain's navy.

• 45:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  And this place had a tremendous history of sea doggerie or sea dogging, didn't it?

• 45:27Tom Holland?

  There's a lot of sea dogging going on here.

• 45:29Dominic Sandbrook?

  They had two veterans of the Battle of Copenhagen who were here and a veteran of Trafalgar lived here, right?

• 45:35Tom Holland?

  Yes, a guy called Henry Dawkins was here. Now, you said that this was built in the Tudor period. These are not Tudor buildings. So actually, it got rebuilt in 1789.

• 45:49Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 45:50Tom Holland?

  And then it got refurbished again in the 1980s when it got opened by the Queen Mother.

• 45:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Oh, lovely.

• 45:57Tom Holland?

  So you've got John Hawkins, you've got redevelopment in the period of the French Revolution, and you've got the Queen Mother. And I think that Dominic, you'd agree that this is one of the many jewels of Chatham High Street.

• 46:11Dominic Sandbrook?

  That's the rich tapestry of British history, right?

• 46:13Tom Holland?

  But the exciting news is there are more jewels. And I think we should go and look at another of them.

• 46:19Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because our cameraman's about to be run over. So let's go.

• 46:24Dominic Sandbrook?

  What's so weak? So a really weak clap there from Theo to start this new segment. Now, Tom, one of the things that we associate with Dockland areas, of course, is pubs. And we are looking at two splendid historic pubs. So one of them is the Northfallen. And I would just want to give people an impression of the forensic research that you've brought to this episode.

• 46:44Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 46:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  So your notes say, Nelson reputedly drank here. So that's great. So that definitely happened. So.

• 46:55Dominic Sandbrook?

  So I read that it was rebuilt in 1912 and shut in 2012. So an amazing.

• 47:00Tom Holland?

  So I bet you're glad you've seen that now. Imagine if you'd been stuck in the Cotswolds all this time and you've never got to see that.

• 47:07Dominic Sandbrook?

  A really amazing history.

• 47:08Tom Holland?

  But Dominic, there's more, isn't there?

• 47:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 47:10Tom Holland?

  There's more. You have not yet drunk your fill of the cup of historical delights that Chatham High Street has to offer. So do you want to continue or are you laughing too much?

• 47:21Dominic Sandbrook?

  No, I'm laughing too much, but I will continue. Come through. I'm just telling children to come through because Tom's ruining their day. So opposite us is something called the Ship Inn. And I read in Tom's notes, Tom's written the words, "One of the oldest gay pubs in the country."

• 47:39Tom Holland?

  I think that's definitely true.

• 47:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  But then his citation comes from Kent Online. I'm laughing so much I can't speak.

• 47:51Tom Holland?

  Kent Online is a very reputable source, very scholarly, peer reviewed. So do you want to read that what it says?

• 47:59Dominic Sandbrook?

  Kent Online. Apparently, I feel like the word apparently is doing a lot of lifting there.

• 48:06Tom Holland?

  It gets better, doesn't it?

• 48:10Dominic Sandbrook?

  Apparently the bartender's mate recently compiled a history of Rochester High Street and proudly informed me, this is the writer from Kent Online, that the pub is more than 500 years old and Medway's oldest gay bar.

• 48:25Tom Holland?

  Well, that's definitely true.

• 48:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  Not only this, but he confidently declared that the purple dance bar on the left, complete with its brick look wallpaper, was the site of the first arrest and conviction for buggery way back in the days of Henry VIII. So apparently that is from.

• 48:44Tom Holland?

  According to the barman's mate.

• 48:47Dominic Sandbrook?

  The barman's mate. But actually, there's some serious history behind this, much as I'm laughing about your ludicrous research. There's some serious history behind this that I'm hoping you've put some, an equal amount of effort into.

• 49:01Tom Holland?

  Well, I actually, do you know what I'm going to do? I'm going to read from the foundation stone on this building. Which reads, "This foundation stone was laid by Simon Magnus for a memorial synagogue in affectionate remembrance of his much lamented and only son Lazarus Simon Magnus Esquire." So a synagogue on Chatham High Street is a reminder of the fact that as well as pubs, what you expect to find in Docklands and Dockyards and all that kind of thing is lots of people from overseas. And when the Jews were allowed back into England in the mid 17th century-

• 49:33Dominic Sandbrook?

  By-

• 49:34Tom Holland?

  By Oliver Cromwell-

• 49:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  My friend of the show Oliver Cromwell.

• 49:35Tom Holland?

  Although not officially, but effectively. One of the earliest communities outside London where Jews settled was in Chatham, because of course it was growing, it was provided links to all the other Jewish communities on the continent. And the first synagogue on this site was built in 1750, and the people who were able to fund it could do it because they were helping people in the Royal Navy who had captured prizes to then kind of sell them, to convert it into money, and they would take a cut. And that cut then enabled them to fund the first synagogue. But this particular synagogue opened in 1869, and

• 50:19Tom Holland?

  it was, as the foundation said, it was built by the father of this guy, Simon Magnus, who had been a captain in the 4th Kent Artillery Volunteers. And he'd also been a business partner of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the great engineer. So, you know, Gundolph Brunel, all the great engineers-

• 50:38Dominic Sandbrook?

  All the big names.

• 50:38Tom Holland?

  -are featuring in this story. And we mentioned earlier about the Lepa Hospital and about how there are these paths that go from the river up to where the hospital was. And there was one of them that went along the west side of the synagogue. So it was a kind of freehold of a strip of ground, which remains kind of, you know, they couldn't buy it, and they have, to this day, they have to pay a rent to use it of five p per annum. So again, a kind of fascinating link, taking us back to the medieval origins-

• 51:13Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yet more of the extraordinarily rich and vibrant history of this part of the world.

• 51:18Tom Holland?

  Yes, absolutely. And this synagogue is still going strong. And during both the wars, particularly in the Second World War, it provided a home for Jewish servicemen who passed through Chatham and were working here.

• 51:35Tom Holland?

  And talking, so we've talked about Nelson, we've talked about the Second World War, and the obvious place in Chatham where Nelson and the Second World War could join is the naval dockyards, the Royal Dockyards, the reason that all these incredible treasures, Dominic, are lining Chatham High Street. So I think that we should go there now.

• 51:57Dominic Sandbrook?

  Let's do that.

• 52:03Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right, now if you're watching this, you can see that we've moved location to somewhere very, very spectacular indeed. So Tom, we have moved to Chatham's Royal Dockyard, and we're in the bowels of the Dockyard, and a place we'll reveal in a second. But so the Dockyard is built in, first opens in 1567, and lasts for what?

• 52:22Tom Holland?

  414 years.

• 52:23Dominic Sandbrook?

  Wow.

• 52:24Tom Holland?

  Yeah, closes in 1984.

• 52:26Dominic Sandbrook?

  So you love this place. Now, the irony is that when we first did the Rest is History, you hated the Royal Navy, you hated dockyards.

• 52:33Tom Holland?

  I hated rope.

• 52:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  And above all, you hated rope. So it's fitting that to apologize and to abase yourself, you have come to the ropey of the Royal Dockyard. But just talk to me about the Royal Dockyard before we get on to the ropey.

• 52:45Tom Holland?

  I do love the Dockyard here in Chatham. And the reason for that, it's a phrase that NAM Roger, the great historian of the Royal Navy, expressed, that the Dockyards, Portsmouth, Chatham, places like that, are 19th century islands in an 18th century sea. And you actually did, you did a TV show here on HG Wells. And I guess you came here because that sense of, it has a science fiction quality. It's this idea of technology being ahead of the historical context. Because these are amazing places. These are where the most lethal killing machines on the face of the planet are developed, namely the ships of the Royal Navy, of which, over the course of the 414 years...

• 53:30Tom Holland?

  Over 500 ships are built here, including the most famous of all HMS Victory.

• 53:34Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, so Tom, our old friend Daniel Defoe had strong views about this place, didn't he? So I know you love a Daniel Defoe reading because you admire his accent so much. He said, "The building yards, the docks, timber yard, the deal yard, the mast yard, the gun yard, the rope walks and all the other yards and places set apart for the works belonging to the navy are like a well-ordered city. And though you see the whole place as it were in the utmost hurry, yet you see no confusion. Every man knows his own business."

• 54:04Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 54:05Dominic Sandbrook?

  Now, the thing is, he was talking about the rope walks and we are actually in the ropey, which, I mean, you talked about NAM Roger and this idea of this being the 19th century in the 18th century. At its peak, this place, the ropey, was probably the most futuristic, the most technologically and industrially advanced place on the planet. Now, the sublime irony of this is that when we started the podcast, you said there was nothing you hated more than naval rope. And yet you have chosen this place to do this, you know, basically this entire episode, in fact, probably the whole of the podcast, has been building to this moment.

• 54:42Tom Holland?

  Yeah.

• 54:42Dominic Sandbrook?

  So what is it about? Tell me about the ropey.

• 54:44Tom Holland?

  I think it's one of the most amazing historic structures in Britain. It's a great monument to the age of Nelson, to the rise of the Royal Navy, to global supremacy. And as you say, it is a glimpse of the future, built in the 1780s, 1790s. It is, it is 1,140 feet long. When it's built, it was the longest brick building in Britain. It is absolutely stupefying. And some of the machinery here, where they still make rope to this day, you can buy it around the corner. It dates back to 1806. So.

• 55:29Tom Holland?

  If you want a flavour of what it was that powered Chatham, powered this stretch of the Medway, powered the Royal Navy, this is the place to come.

• 55:40Dominic Sandbrook?

  So in a way, Tom, this is where the Napoleonic Wars were won. This is where the Pax Britannica of the 19th century was established. This is what's powering all that, the great dynamo, the Ropery, Chatham Dockyard, the Royal Navy. The infrastructure, the sinews of Britain's greatness. And of course, that continues all the way through to the middle of the 20th century. And I think we should fast forward to the Second World War. And we should go out of here and we should go to an equally exciting historical site, which is a splendid ship.

• 56:14Tom Holland?

  Let's do that. And we will be ending this podcast by treading the metal boards of a British battleship.

• 56:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  I'm going to be sat doing TV.

• 56:31Dominic Sandbrook?

  So, Tom, we've been on.

• 56:37Dominic Sandbrook?

  So, Tom, we've been on an epic journey, haven't we, through Rochester and Chatham? And now we've reached an earth shattering conclusion because we have come deep into the dockyard here at Chatham and we are on a Second World War battleship. So tell me a little bit about this ship and why you've chosen this. And tell me a little bit about its story.

• 57:00Tom Holland?

  Okay, well, you know that I love a Second World War battleship.

• 57:04Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah.

• 57:04Tom Holland?

  And to be more precise, I love a C-class destroyer.

• 57:08Dominic Sandbrook?

  Right.

• 57:08Tom Holland?

  Which is what this ship, HMS Cavalier, a name that I like to think Charles II would very much have approved of.

• 57:14Dominic Sandbrook?

  Yeah, Prince Rupert, Charles I, they'd all love that.

• 57:16Tom Holland?

  They would all have loved it. That's what this is.

• 57:21Tom Holland?

  A C-class destroyer. What's your favourite kind of destroyer? What class?

• 57:25Dominic Sandbrook?

  Probably B, probably a B class.

• 57:27Tom Holland?

  Okay, but a C-class is quite good.

• 57:28Dominic Sandbrook?

  I like all destroyers, but I'd probably rank top three C, B, probably A, in that order.

• 57:35Tom Holland?

  And also, I think also very nice is the colour. So for those who can't see, it's kind of lovely turquoise. And it blends in with the turquoise of the River Medway, which is behind us.

• 57:45Dominic Sandbrook?

  Gosh, that's wild.

• 57:46Tom Holland?

  So, anyway, so.

• 57:48Dominic Sandbrook?

  It's a painterly eye, isn't it?

• 57:49Tom Holland?

  It absolutely is. So this ship is, it was launched in the Second World War. It fought in Norway, it fought, it joined a convoy going to the Soviet Union and back.

• 58:00Dominic Sandbrook?

  You say it, surely she.

• 58:01Tom Holland?

  She. And then she sailed out to join in the final stages of the War of the Pacific. So absolutely a reminder of Chatham's role in the Second World War. But I think that this ship is also a memorial to the decline of Chatham. Because this ship got decommissioned in the 1970s and Chatham gets decommissioned in 1984. And really with the closing of the docks, so much that had made Chatham Chatham for 400-odd years, ends. So in a sense, where we are now is a reminder both of Britain's glory days in the Second World War,

• 58:41Tom Holland?

  but also of the geopolitical and economic decline that followed. And in that sense, I think this is a perfect place to conclude that, the journey, the odyssey that you were talking about. So we've gone from Arnge Hillfort, Roman Bridge, and now we are in the 1980s.

• 59:01Dominic Sandbrook?

  So in a very real sense, Tom, we've covered all English history, the story of, I was about to say one town, but really two towns, Rochester and Chatham.

• 59:07Tom Holland?

  Yeah, but joined by a single high street.

• 59:09Dominic Sandbrook?

  Joined by a single high street. And let's not end on a downbeat note.

• 59:12Tom Holland?

  No.

• 59:12Dominic Sandbrook?

  Because I feel what we've gained from this is a sense of the extraordinarily rich history of Chatham, but also that I've learned.

• 59:19Tom Holland?

  What have you learned, Dominic?

• 59:22Dominic Sandbrook?

  I've learned that Chatham's not just a town, Tom, it's a community and I think that's lovely. What about you?

• 59:26Tom Holland?

  Yeah, I can't argue with that. We've been, we've been welcomed with such hospitality out of the way on the streets.

• 59:32Dominic Sandbrook?

  I think we've learned a lot from the people of Chatham, probably more than the people listening to this podcast have learned from us.

• 59:41Tom Holland?

  I hate that they've learned something, which is go to Rochester High Street, walk down it, get to Chatham High Street, then come to the docks and you couldn't be happier. All of, all of, all of English history is there.

• 59:51Dominic Sandbrook?

  On that shocking bombshell, we should probably say goodbye to Chatham, goodbye to Rochester and goodbye to the listeners. Goodbye.

• 59:57Tom Holland?

  Goodbye.

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