page_title: Chatham, Kent
section_title: Geography
hierarchical_section_title: Chatham, Kent / Geography
caption_attribution_description: Chatham is a town in ,North Kent ,England. The A2 road and Luton Road pass under the Chatham Main Line at the Luton Arches. Looking West to Chatham High Street. White vans filter in from Luton Road. Pedestrians on complex footbridge. Hidden Traffic Signal Camera. Camera location51°&#160;22′&#160;42.6″&#160;N, 0°&#160;32′&#160;05.28″&#160;EView this and other nearby images on: OpenStreetMap - Google Earth
context_page_description: Chatham is a town located within the Medway unitary authority, in North Kent, in South East England.
  The town developed around Chatham Dockyard and several Army barracks, together with 19th-century forts which provided a defensive shield for the dockyard. The Corps of Royal Engineers is still based in Chatham at Brompton Barracks.
  The Dockyard closed in 1984, but the remaining major naval buildings are an attraction for a flourishing tourist industry. Following closure, part of the site was developed as a commercial port, other parts were redeveloped for business and residential use, and part was used as the Chatham Historic Dockyard museum. Its attractions include the submarine HMS Ocelot.
  The town has important road links and the railway and bus stations are the main interchanges for the area. It is the administrative headquarters of Medway unitary authority, as well as its principal shopping centre.
context_section_description: Chatham is situated where the lower part of the dip slope of the North Downs meets the River Medway which at this point is flowing in a south-north direction. This gives the right bank, where the town stands, considerable advantages from the point of view of river use. Compared with opposite bank, the river is fast-flowing and deep; the illustration (1), an early print of the settlement, is taken from the point where Fort Pitt now stands. The town lies below at river level, curving round to occupy a south-easterly trending valley (The Brook"), in which lies the High Street. Beyond the dockyard was marshy land, now called St Mary's Island, and has several new developments of housing estates. The New Road crosses the scene below the vantage point of the illustration.
  Illustration (2) is taken from the opposite side of the valley: the Pentagon Centre is to the right, with the building on the ridge left of centre, Fort Pitt and Rochester lies beyond that ridge; and Frindsbury is on the rising ground in the right distance.
  The valley continues southeastwards as the Luton Valley, in which is the erstwhile village of that name; and Capstone Valley. The Darland Banks, the northern slopes of the valley above these valleys, are unimproved chalk grassland. The photograph (3), taken from the Banks and looking south, shows the village in the centre, with the rows of Victorian terraced housing, which unusually follow the contour lines. The opposite slopes are the ‘’Daisy Banks'’ and ‘’Coney Banks'’, along which some of the defensive forts were built (including Fort Luton, in the trees to the left)
  Until the start of the 20th century, most of the south part of the borough was entirely rural, with a number of farms and large tracts of woodland. The beginning of what is now Walderslade was when a speculative builder began to build the core of the village in Walderslade Bottoms.
caption: The A2 road at Luton Arches. The New Road runs underneath the Luton Arches Footbridge.
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