Historic Dockyard Chatham is a huge site, and right at the beginning of the visitor journey lies the Command of the Oceans galleries. These new displays, which are just beyond the smart new entrance and cafe created as part of a £9m project, tell the story of how sail-powered warships built at the dockyard in the 18th century enabled the Royal Navy to dominate the oceans and establish Great Britain as a superpower.
The galleries occupy the Mast Houses and Mould Loft, which have been impressively restored. The seven Mast Houses were used to make and store ships’ masts, some up to 27m tall, while shipwrights marked out the shape of new vessels’ hulls in the Mould Loft.
The first thing that struck me was how welcoming the gallery staff were – they were clearly proud of the new galleries and keen to speak to every visitor. A five-minute, three-screen presentation introduces people to the galleries. This is the first of five audiovisual exhibits at key points that feature television presenter Fiona Bruce, who guides visitors through the galleries. This seems like a good idea at first, but by the end of my visit, hearing the same voice repeatedly became a little overpowering. My reaction may not be typical though, because I spent much longer in the galleries than most visitors probably do.
The audiovisual presentations play a crucial role in conveying the main gallery narratives, but I found their soundtracks too dominant in the overall visitor experience. The music adds atmosphere to the galleries but sound spilled over in places, in particular from one exhibit that introduced the significance of HMS Namur – narration from this filled adjoining displays. However, the galleries had only been open for three weeks when I visited, so staff were probably still fine-tuning sound levels and balance.
Good rigging
The first object visitors encounter is a remarkable 7.6m-long model of HMS Victory weighing two tonnes that was made for a 1941 Hollywood film starring Laurence Olivier as Horatio Nelson. Beyond this, a row of ships’ guns shows the development of their design through the 18th century.
Several interactive stations in People, Tools & Trades invite visitors to dress up as mastmakers, riggers and caulkers, and try their hand at using the tools of the trade. Each tool station also has a zoetrope that people can spin to see how each trade was done. The exhibits overcome inherent health and safety issues ingeniously and are perfectly designed for – and I’m sure will be popular with –families and groups of schoolchildren. The gallery also includes touchscreens that enable visitors to explore information about the 2,500 people employed in 26 trades at the dockyard in 1803.
The Supporting the Fleet gallery features objects recovered by archaeologists from the wreck of HMS Invincible, which sank off Portsmouth in 1758. Remarkably preserved items such as chamberpots, brooms, carpenters’ tools, rigging equipment, bottles, tankards and shoes provide glimpses into life on board, but the absence of contextual images limits the sense of the people who used them. Indeed, while people are at the centre of the narratives told, more could have been done to visually “people” the galleries in general.
The display includes five interactives that require visitors to spin replicas – a bowl, sand glass and Dead Eye rigging block – to reveal on-screen text and images about the original objects. While I applaud the commitment to involve visitors, I was left frustrated by the need to repeatedly spin the replicas to reveal individual words or phrases. Children are also encouraged to engage with the objects through interactive Dockyard Explorer flaps that provide information about how they were used. These feature a Captain’s Cat character and link to a dockyard-wide family trail.
The huge timbers of the Namur, “the ship beneath the floor”, are the undoubted star of the show. With battle honours outstripping even those of the Victory, the Namur deserves to be centre stage. The 245 timbers were discovered by chance under the floor of the dockyard’s Wheelwrights’ Shop during routine maintenance in 1995. They have been preserved and researched over the past 20 years, and are displayed where they were found.
Visitors’ first sight of the dramatically lit skeleton of the ship, after descending via a ramp, is breathtaking and the gallery oozes atmosphere. A horizontal audiovisual exhibit at the centre of the space provides a concise overview of the work of the marine archaeologists who analysed the timbers and pieced together the evidence. Tablet-sized touchscreens enable visitors to vote on theories about why the timbers might have been hidden, or to find out about the timbers’ functions, marks and joints. They can also listen to a dramatic account of the Battle of Lagos by one of the Namur’s most famous crew members, Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved African who had the dangerous job of carrying gunpowder to the ship’s guns. Equiano went on to become a prominent campaigner for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
Ship shape
Making the galleries as accessible as possible was obviously a priority and it was good to see British sign language signers on key audiovisual exhibits, automatic doors, a wheelchair lift and plenty of seating with arm rests for less mobile visitors. Although most of the text is white on coloured backgrounds, contrast and legibility is good. But I suspect some visitors might find the main introductory panels too high and a few wall captions, such as those below artworks, too low to read comfortably.
The text generally avoids unnecessary detail and technical language. It is written using a hierarchy that means visitors who only want essential information do not need to read everything. However, more could have been done to make the text more engaging, for example, by addressing the reader directly and including questions or directions to look at particular details of objects.
The impressive Command of the Oceans galleries provide a fitting setting for important collections that are on display for the first time, and are an inspiring starting point for exploring the dockyard. They also leave visitors in no doubt about the significance of Chatham’s Royal Dockyard in the country’s history.
Frazer Swift is the head of learning at the Museum of London and an associate tutor at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
Main funders Heritage Lottery Fund; the Homes & Communities Agency; other donors
Main contractor FWA
Architect Baynes & Mitchell
Exhibition design Land Design Studio
Media production ISO Design
Project management Artelia
Structural engineer Price & Myers
Lighting Studio
Interactives Paragon
Display cases Conservation by Design
Admission £24 Adult, £14 Children; MA members free
The galleries occupy the Mast Houses and Mould Loft, which have been impressively restored. The seven Mast Houses were used to make and store ships’ masts, some up to 27m tall, while shipwrights marked out the shape of new vessels’ hulls in the Mould Loft.
The first thing that struck me was how welcoming the gallery staff were – they were clearly proud of the new galleries and keen to speak to every visitor. A five-minute, three-screen presentation introduces people to the galleries. This is the first of five audiovisual exhibits at key points that feature television presenter Fiona Bruce, who guides visitors through the galleries. This seems like a good idea at first, but by the end of my visit, hearing the same voice repeatedly became a little overpowering. My reaction may not be typical though, because I spent much longer in the galleries than most visitors probably do.
The audiovisual presentations play a crucial role in conveying the main gallery narratives, but I found their soundtracks too dominant in the overall visitor experience. The music adds atmosphere to the galleries but sound spilled over in places, in particular from one exhibit that introduced the significance of HMS Namur – narration from this filled adjoining displays. However, the galleries had only been open for three weeks when I visited, so staff were probably still fine-tuning sound levels and balance.
Good rigging
The first object visitors encounter is a remarkable 7.6m-long model of HMS Victory weighing two tonnes that was made for a 1941 Hollywood film starring Laurence Olivier as Horatio Nelson. Beyond this, a row of ships’ guns shows the development of their design through the 18th century.
Several interactive stations in People, Tools & Trades invite visitors to dress up as mastmakers, riggers and caulkers, and try their hand at using the tools of the trade. Each tool station also has a zoetrope that people can spin to see how each trade was done. The exhibits overcome inherent health and safety issues ingeniously and are perfectly designed for – and I’m sure will be popular with –families and groups of schoolchildren. The gallery also includes touchscreens that enable visitors to explore information about the 2,500 people employed in 26 trades at the dockyard in 1803.
The Supporting the Fleet gallery features objects recovered by archaeologists from the wreck of HMS Invincible, which sank off Portsmouth in 1758. Remarkably preserved items such as chamberpots, brooms, carpenters’ tools, rigging equipment, bottles, tankards and shoes provide glimpses into life on board, but the absence of contextual images limits the sense of the people who used them. Indeed, while people are at the centre of the narratives told, more could have been done to visually “people” the galleries in general.
The display includes five interactives that require visitors to spin replicas – a bowl, sand glass and Dead Eye rigging block – to reveal on-screen text and images about the original objects. While I applaud the commitment to involve visitors, I was left frustrated by the need to repeatedly spin the replicas to reveal individual words or phrases. Children are also encouraged to engage with the objects through interactive Dockyard Explorer flaps that provide information about how they were used. These feature a Captain’s Cat character and link to a dockyard-wide family trail.
The huge timbers of the Namur, “the ship beneath the floor”, are the undoubted star of the show. With battle honours outstripping even those of the Victory, the Namur deserves to be centre stage. The 245 timbers were discovered by chance under the floor of the dockyard’s Wheelwrights’ Shop during routine maintenance in 1995. They have been preserved and researched over the past 20 years, and are displayed where they were found.
Visitors’ first sight of the dramatically lit skeleton of the ship, after descending via a ramp, is breathtaking and the gallery oozes atmosphere. A horizontal audiovisual exhibit at the centre of the space provides a concise overview of the work of the marine archaeologists who analysed the timbers and pieced together the evidence. Tablet-sized touchscreens enable visitors to vote on theories about why the timbers might have been hidden, or to find out about the timbers’ functions, marks and joints. They can also listen to a dramatic account of the Battle of Lagos by one of the Namur’s most famous crew members, Olaudah Equiano, an enslaved African who had the dangerous job of carrying gunpowder to the ship’s guns. Equiano went on to become a prominent campaigner for the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.
Ship shape
Making the galleries as accessible as possible was obviously a priority and it was good to see British sign language signers on key audiovisual exhibits, automatic doors, a wheelchair lift and plenty of seating with arm rests for less mobile visitors. Although most of the text is white on coloured backgrounds, contrast and legibility is good. But I suspect some visitors might find the main introductory panels too high and a few wall captions, such as those below artworks, too low to read comfortably.
The text generally avoids unnecessary detail and technical language. It is written using a hierarchy that means visitors who only want essential information do not need to read everything. However, more could have been done to make the text more engaging, for example, by addressing the reader directly and including questions or directions to look at particular details of objects.
The impressive Command of the Oceans galleries provide a fitting setting for important collections that are on display for the first time, and are an inspiring starting point for exploring the dockyard. They also leave visitors in no doubt about the significance of Chatham’s Royal Dockyard in the country’s history.
Frazer Swift is the head of learning at the Museum of London and an associate tutor at the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester
Project data
Cost £9mMain funders Heritage Lottery Fund; the Homes & Communities Agency; other donors
Main contractor FWA
Architect Baynes & Mitchell
Exhibition design Land Design Studio
Media production ISO Design
Project management Artelia
Structural engineer Price & Myers
Lighting Studio
Interactives Paragon
Display cases Conservation by Design
Admission £24 Adult, £14 Children; MA members free
