The town of Gillingham in Kent grew up around the Royal Navy’s Chatham Dockyard. By the River Medway, this had been an important maritime area for centuries but it was only in the nineteenth century that the small settlement grew into a town. A large proportion of the town’s workforce and businesses depended on the dockyard, so its closure in the 1980s meant that the town had to rethink its focus. It is now the largest and busiest town in the Medway region but much has changed over the years: annual military and naval displays that are now just a memory, houses occupied by artisans and labourers that were demolished, shops and chapels that were removed due to extensive road projects, and cinemas and theatres that were redeveloped, as well as barracks, defence works and the Victorian naval dockyard that have had to find a new lease of life.

Lost Gillingham presents a portrait of this corner of Kent over the last century that has radically changed or disappeared today, showing not only industries and buildings that have gone but also people and street scenes, many popular places of entertainment and much more. This fascinating photographic history of lost Gillingham will appeal to all those who live in the area or know it well, as well as those who remember it from previous decades.

'Lost Gillingham is an important resource of images that stir memories and pride in place.' -- Bygone Kent Magazine, August 2025

Philip MacDougall writes books for Amberley on southern England, but with a particular interest in the military and naval complexes that arose in and around South Hampshire (especially Portsmouth), coastal Sussex (especially Chichester) and Kent (especially Medway). As a social historian, he is interested in the people and the resources of those areas and the support provided for each of those military complexes. Possibly that interest was first sparked by having a distant ancestor who served as Nelson’s secretary during the 1790s and who first joined the future Admiral at the Great Nore anchorage and which lies off North Kent. As well as the author of a number of published books, Philip has contributed biographical material on selected naval officers for the widely-acclaimed Dictionary of National Biography. A speaker at events, both local and national, he offers a wide-range of talks connected with the books he has written.