About Wooden Walls

4th November 1758 - William Crockwell, a young apprentice, is about to begin his first day at the Dockyard.

Join him as he walks through the streets of old Chatham to meet his new master, John North, Carpenter of the 74-gun ship Valiant, then under construction at the yard.

Enter our dockyard of 1758 through the Main Gate to the tolling of the morning muster bell. Meet John North as he takes young William on a tour of the dockyard.

Together you will experience the sights, sounds and smells of a busy warship building yard and meet the dockyard workers involved in building the Valiant  - from the joiners in the mould loft, to the sawyers in the dusty sawpits, shipwrights and caulkers in the dry docks and the anchor smiths working in tremendous noise and heat in the Smithery. See the ship made ready for sea and go on board her as her crew  prepare her to set sail against the French fleet.

In 18th century Britain it took some twenty-six different trades to build a wooden-hulled sail- powered warship and was the most complex industrial operation known to mankind at the time.  The characters in Wooden Walls really did exist - their lives and careers were traced through naval and Dockyard records.

The gallery is housed in seven interlinked, timber-framed mast-houses, built largely from reused warship timbers with a 'mould loft' above where the lines for Nelson's flagship, Victory, are reputed to have been laid.