The Stuart Yard: Britain's Premier Dockyard & Dutch Wars

In 1613 the dockyard moved downstream to the present location of the Historic Dockyard. By 1618 storehouses and a ropewalk had been built, and by 1625 a dry dock and houses for senior officials were erected.

From the mid 17th Century English foreign policy was dominated by a series of trade wars with the Dutch. Fought largely at sea, most of the naval actions took place in the English Channel and North Sea, an area that Chatham was geographically well placed to support providing a safe haven for the fleet to be kept over winter, but also being the closest Royal Dockyard  to the main operational fleet anchorages at the Nore and off the Downs. The dockyard quickly therefore became the Royal Navy's pre-eminent ship building and repair yard, and fleet base, overtaking the Thames yards of Woolwich and Deptford in this respect.

Only largely archaeological evidence now remains of the Stuart dockyard. Three sites are known to exist - the area to the front of Commissioner's House, the garden to Commissioner's House itself and the site of the South Mast Pond. However it is likely that other evidence remains across a wider site than this as the  17th Century yard extended across much of the core of the present Historic Dockyard site.