The Georgian Yard: The Dockyard in the Reign of Queen Anne

The reign of Queen Anne (1702-13) saw the construction of the Dockyard's earliest surviving building, the Commissioner's House (shown in the photograph to the right) built 1703 -04 for Captain George St Lo, a newly promoted from Plymouth Dock. The house, erected on the site of its predecessor inherited the garden, first laid out by Phineas Pett  in the 1640's and provides a tangible link between the dockyard known to Pepys and Evelyn and the present day.

Queen Anne's reign, dominated by the War of the Spanish Succession, also saw a major shift in English naval activity westwards, away from the North Sea and Channel to the Atlantic and Mediterranean and beyond capturing Gibraltar (1704) and Port Royal (1710). By the time of her death in 1713 the Royal Navy's supremacy at sea had been established and the foundation for the use of sea power to develop Britain's global influence laid.

Proximity to the North Sea, which had placed Chatham in a such prime position during the 17th century, was not such an advantage during the 18th  once attention had shifted westwards towards the Mediterranean and the New World. Inevitably the home dockyards at Portsmouth and Plymouth were geographically better located to support the fleet, whilst Chatham's position was further compromised by changes to the River Medway which began to silt heavily during the century. The combination of both factors led to a significant change of role for the dockyard at Chatham - from fleet base to the country's principal naval shipbuilding and repair yard. A role that would see the dockyard build and repair many of the Navy's most important ships.