River Medway history Flying Boats

[Capt Popeye]

Having just seen the post about a Structure at Cuxton i'd thought that I might mention another piece of Medway history that might either not be widely known or poss of some interest on here!

T'is well known that the Short Flying boats were built a'while at Rochester near the Castle. Well if you look at the realatively new Appartment Blocks nearer the Castle end there is an entrance between them and a grassy knoll with a bricked up entrance in the middle.
Through this Entrance was (or more accurately still is) an underground workshop extending a great distance inside the Chalk Cliff where in WW2 work on the Flying Boats took place. The entrance was bricked up when the Appartments were built, but not untill EH went inside and recorded what they could.
On the left hand side are the remains of a cliff walkway where, it is reported, the Short owner climbed to his Home each night and of course down he came every morning.

 

[Mirror Painter]

Interesting - thanks for the post. I looked up further details here:

http://www.28dayslater.co.uk/forums/showthread.php/27193-Rochester-shorts-tunnels-13-01-08

 

[Capt Popeye]

thank you moxon

great link offered

 

[sailorman]

Having just seen the post about a Structure at Cuxton i'd thought that I might mention another piece of Medway history that might either not be widely known or poss of some interest on here!

T'is well known that the Short Flying boats were built a'while at Rochester near the Castle. Well if you look at the relatively new Apartment Blocks nearer the Castle end there is an entrance between them and a grassy knoll with a bricked up entrance in the middle.
Through this Entrance was (or more accurately still is) an underground workshop extending a great distance inside the Chalk Cliff where in WW2 work on the Flying Boats took place. The entrance was bricked up when the Apartments were built, but not until EH went inside and recorded what they could.
On the left hand side are the remains of a cliff walkway where, it is reported, the Short owner climbed to his Home each night and of course down he came every morning.

My Father worked on them @ Rochester but sadly have no other info.He was a carpenter & joiner drafted down after training.

 

[oldgit]

All those tunnels and that Napoleonic fort on top of the hill used to be the play area of choice for the local neer-do wells.
The steel doors and padlocks may have kept out Bony but the local oiks soon sorted them..
Loads of details on Shorts and the tunnels here
http://www.medwaylines.com/shortbrothers.htm

Corse as eveyone knows just up the river a bit is Sheppey where the first flights in Uk were carried out.
http://www.muswellmanor.co.uk/aviation_history.htm
Cracking pix of Mussel Manor with all in a row

The Wright Bros
Short Bros
Rolls
Dehavllind ?
Brabazon
and Mr Cody.
Plus one or two others that escape me.
and we built the Victory.
All the Thames can boast is a field(damp and muddy and prob flooded) that somebody was supposed to have signed a bit of paper in,which was torn up a few months later and ignored ever since.

 

[Capt Popeye]

thanks for the memories OG

much appreciated

 

[thalassa]

On the left hand side are the remains of a cliff walkway where, it is reported, the Short owner climbed to his Home each night and of course down he came every morning.

I stayed a few times at the B&B on Borstal road. Identical story, here it was 'the Head Engineer' who had lived there. They had a large photo of a flying boat hanging in the breakfast room. So I got chatting, they took me down the path to see the remnants of the workshops. Probably gone too by now.
BTW, sorry for barging in here,
Will