Haunted Chatham is packed with military ghosts, spectral sailors and strange tales from one of Kent’s most historic towns. Here are five haunted places to visit
Chatham has been shaped by soldiers, sailors and shipbuilding for centuries.
Its famous dockyard and military defences made the Kent town one of Britain’s most important naval centres, leaving behind forts, tunnels, barracks and historic buildings with plenty of ghost stories attached to them.
From phantom soldiers beneath Fort Amherst to strange figures around the old dockyard, here are five haunted places to visit in Chatham.
Fort Amherst
Fort Amherst, Dock Road, Chatham, Kent ME4 4UB
Fort Amherst is one of Chatham’s best-known haunted locations and has become a popular destination for paranormal investigators.
Built from the 18th century onwards to protect Chatham Dockyard from attack, the fort contains an extensive network of underground tunnels, gun positions and military buildings.
Visitors and staff have reported shadows moving through the tunnels, unexplained whispers and footsteps, and the sounds of a woman crying when nobody else is nearby.
One of the most frequently reported apparitions is that of a soldier seen around the lower gun floor. Witnesses have described seeing a dark human figure before it suddenly disappears.
There are also stranger stories. Some visitors have claimed to leave the tunnels with small handprints inexplicably appearing on their clothing.
Churchfields
Churchfields, Church Street, Chatham, Kent ME4 4DS
Churchfields is a green open space close to the centre of Chatham, but the surrounding area has an intriguing connection with one of Kent’s strangest supernatural stories.
Mary Goffe died in 1691 and became famous for an extraordinary account in which she apparently appeared to her children while lying seriously ill elsewhere.
The story was later recorded by John Henry Ingram in his 19th-century book, The Haunted Homes and Family Traditions of Great Britain.
According to the account, Mary desperately wanted to see her children before she died. One morning, they and their nurse claimed Mary had appeared beside their bed and remained there for around 15 minutes.
The remarkable part was that Mary was supposedly lying ill several miles away at the time.
The story became one of Chatham’s oldest recorded tales of an apparition, with later local tradition associating Mary’s ghost with the Churchfields area.
St Mary’s Island
St Mary’s Island, Chatham, Kent ME4 3ER
St Mary’s Island formed part of the enormous Chatham naval complex and was once dominated by military buildings, docks and barracks.
Thousands of sailors and naval personnel passed through the area during its working life before the Royal Navy finally withdrew from Chatham in 1984.
Ghost stories have inevitably become attached to the former naval site.
People have reported unexplained footsteps and voices around the old military areas, while shadowy figures resembling sailors have supposedly been glimpsed before disappearing.
Much of St Mary’s Island has since been redeveloped for housing, making it very different from the isolated naval landscape that once stood here.
But the island’s military past is never very far away.
The Historic Dockyard Chatham
Main Gate Road, Chatham, Kent ME4 4TZ
Few places define Chatham quite like its historic dockyard.
Warships were built here for hundreds of years, and generations of shipwrights, sailors, labourers and naval personnel worked within its walls.
With that history have come plenty of ghost stories.
Unexplained footsteps have been heard inside historic buildings, while visitors and staff have reported sudden cold spots and fleeting figures dressed in clothing from earlier periods.
There are also stories of sounds associated with the dockyard’s working past. Hammering, footsteps and other noises have allegedly been heard when buildings were otherwise quiet.
Whether these are ghosts or simply the noises of centuries-old buildings, wandering around the dockyard after hearing the stories certainly gives Chatham’s naval history a different atmosphere.
The Former Theatre Royal
High Street, Chatham, Kent ME4
Chatham’s theatrical history has its own ghost stories.
The Theatre Royal once stood on Chatham High Street and was part of a long tradition of live entertainment in the Medway towns.
Stories became attached to the theatre of unexplained footsteps, strange noises and the apparition of a woman dressed in old-fashioned clothing.
She was traditionally described as an actress connected with the theatre, although, as with many theatrical ghosts, the details of her identity and supposed death vary with the telling.
The old Theatre Royal itself is no longer operating as a theatre, but the story remains part of Chatham’s theatrical folklore.
Chatham’s ghosts are closely tied to the town’s past. Soldiers haunt its fortifications, sailors linger around the former naval base and centuries of work at the dockyard have left behind stories of figures who apparently never clocked off.
And beneath Fort Amherst, where the daylight disappears and footsteps carry a surprisingly long way through the tunnels, it is easy to understand why Chatham has produced so many ghost stories.
