Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps

Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps
Chattenden
Chattenden Barracks
Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps Location within Kent
Coordinates	51°25′18″N 0°31′20″E / 51.42154°N 0.52212°E / 51.42154; 0.52212Coordinates: 51°25′18″N 0°31′20″E / 51.42154°N 0.52212°E / 51.42154; 0.52212
Type	Barracks
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	British Army
Site history
Built	1875
Built for	War Office
In use	1875-2016

Chattenden and Lodge Hill Military Camps were British Army training camps near Chattenden in Kent. They were built as ordnance depots and functioned as such through to the second half of the twentieth century.

After 1667 gunpowder began to be stored in Upnor Castle on the north/west bank of the River Medway. During the Napoleonic Wars a gunpowder magazine was built alongside the castle at Lower Upnor designed to store a further 10,000 barrels of gunpowder, followed in 1857 by another, larger magazine which could hold up to 23,000 barrels. Over the next fifty years a series of buildings were built along the riverside designed for filling and storing explosive shells, naval mines and torpedoes - all for use in Her Majesty's Ships and in the extensive fortifications surrounding Chatham and Sheerness Naval Dockyards.

When it was realised that there was no room for further expansion of the storage facilities at Upnor, a nearby site inland at Chattenden was purchased, and in 1875 five magazines were built on a hillside (the contours of which helped provide a natural traverse for security and protection). Between them, the magazines were designed to hold 40,000 barrels of gunpowder (with space for more in times of war). A barracks was also built, a little to the south, to accommodate the eight officers and 120 men detailed to guard the site. The magazine compound and barracks were linked to Upnor by a narrow-gauge railway.

In 1891 the decision was taken to apportion Britain's ordnance depots (which were all at that time overseen by the War Office) either to the Navy or to the Army. Under the new arrangements Upnor was given to the Navy and Chattenden to the Army. Without Chattenden the Navy lacked sufficient storage space; this led to the development of the adjacent Lodge Hill site, opened in 1899, to provided space for a further dozen small magazines for storing cordite, dry guncotton and other highly-explosive materials. Each magazine was surrounded by an earth mound (traverse) and all the individual buildings were linked by a tramway connected to the railway line (the first time a Naval Ordnance Depot had been connected to the mainline). For safety the structures were set apart from one another, and the intervening space was planted with dense woodland. Lodge Hill was initially known as Chattenden Royal Naval Ordnance Depot; but in 1903 the Navy took over the older Chattenden magazines as well, whereupon Upnor, Chattenden and Lodge Hill were each named Royal Naval Ordnance Depots.