The name of Limehouse Reach is exactly descriptive, for the cement factories on the Frindsbury shore give it a character. Here, and above Rochester Bridge, the pleasant Medway valley is scarred and seamed with the chalk-quarrying and the mud-dredging that go towards the making of Portland cement, this neighbourhood being one of the chief centres of that industry. The chalk and the river-mud are mixed roughly in the proportion of three parts of chalk to one of mud, and are then burnt in kilns and ground into a flour-like powder. Portland cement, invented about 1826, is an important industry, with an output of over 3,000,000 tons a year in this country. The price per cask was originally 21s., but the output is now so large and the production has so improved that a better article is now sold at about 4s. a cask.
As to Chatham Dockyard, it is a highly historic place full of keenest interest to a patriotic Briton, but to such a good deal more difficult to explore properly than it is made for distinguished foreigners. Why the native tax-payer who contributes to the support of this establishment so much of his hardly-earned gold should be thus discouraged, while possible enemies—much more keenly concerned to worm out official secrets and far better able to do so—should be shown every particular is more than the plain man can comprehend. But it is the same tale in all our places of arms.
THE MEDWAY: ROCHESTER CASTLE AND CATHEDRAL.
Among the interesting things here in the nature of relics none is more keenly absorbing than the figure-head of the American frigate Chesapeake, the vessel captured by Captain Broke, in command of the Shannon, in 1813. This naval duel was the brightest incident in the three years’ war between England and the United States. The figure-head, a fine specimen of this extinct art, represents a woman with headdress of feathers in the North American Indian fashion.
It is past the Dockyard gates and by High Street, Brompton, and thence across “Chatham Great Lines” that the stranger who wants to find again the coast-line had better trace his course. The district is an unalluring one of tramways, mean streets, and the squalid side of military life. But the Brompton Barracks of the Royal Engineers are rather fine. Here is the Gordon statue, a striking work, representing the General seated on a camel; and here, too, are two triumphal arches displaying the achievements of the Royal Engineers, and four huge bronzes, representing seated Boers with rifles and bandoliers. The “Great Lines,” an upland, common-like expanse, is the scene of that incident in “Pickwick” in which, during the grand review, the timid Mr. Snodgrass, after being violently hustled to and fro, was indignantly asked “vere he vos a-shovin’ to,” together with many other shameful experiences.
Following the tram-lines, we come at last to the terminus at Gillingham, one of the two places of that name in England. The other is in Dorset. Although their names are spelt alike, they are spoken differently: the Dorsetshire town is “Gillingham,” as might be expected: this is, unexpectedly, always locally “Jillingham.”
THE MEDWAY: HOO FORTS.
The ancient church here has a tall tower, conspicuous far and wide on its hill-top; its corner-turret provided with a cresset, or fire-pot, for a beacon. Here, descending the steep and narrow Church Street, and bearing to the right, a hamlet called Gad’s Hill is passed, giving on to a variety of creeks and inlets looking out across the Medway and the circular forts of Gillingham and Hoo, with the wooded heights of the Hundred of Hoo beyond.