Explore the Collection

Explore the work of the Dockyard and the people who not only built ships at Chatham but served on them for 400 years. Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust cares for over 70,000 objects in its collection – ranging from archaeology, rigging, hand tools, machinery to fine art and photography.

Featured

Highlights

Bird's Eye View

Maker

Object Types

Featured Collections

Invincible

Dockyard Trades

Reading Room

Des & Liz Pawson Collection

Uniforms

Highlights from our collection

Photographs

Historic Vessels

Lifebuoys

Billy Childish

Search

You can search the collections of Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust. We have shared highlights from our collection, including items recovered from the wreck of the Invincible (1758), examples of hand tools from the turn of the century through to Dockyard closure, books from the Reading Room and examples of ropemaking machinery and ropework from Des Pawson’s collection. Please see the Help topic on the Search for more details on how to formulate your searches.

Navy Lists

We hold an extensive collection of Navy Lists spanning the 19th-21st centuries. They are valuable resources for anyone undertaking naval-related family history research but, please note, they contain the names of commissioned Royal Navy officers and the ships they served on. Information on the lists we hold can be found in this Navy Lists document (PDF).