Chatham Land Front
A village at war
The importance of Newington in the defence of Britain during World War One cannot be over-estimated.
The village was at the heart of a sophisticated defence line constructed to protect military installations, such as Chatham Royal Dockyard and Woolwich Arsenal, that were essential to the war effort.
Trenches, barbed wire, gun emplacements and tunnels covered key routes from the coast to thwart enemy forces.
Trench design
Trenches on the Chatham Land Front around Newington were virtually identical to those that saw the worst of the fighting on the Western Front in France and Belgium. Clearly, they were built for defence, not just for training.
However, an excavation in 2022 by Swale and Thames Archaeology revealed a surprise - that the base of trenches here were flint-lined rather than duck-boarded, probably so that they were less likely to flood in wet weather.
Flint-lined WWI trench excavated near Newington in 2022
Development
Royal Engineers, initially billeted in Newington, were assisted by troops from various regiments training in the area. They dug a integrated series of trenches, tunnels, and strongpoints and erected miles of barbed wire and telephone cables. They installed platforms for heavy artillery and eventually constructed dozens of machine-guns posts with, from about 1917, pillboxes. All but two still stand.
Aerial image shows the location of Tunnel Hill
You can now find out more about these defences. NHG has installed information boards on local footpaths showing you how to read the landscape and imagine how it looked more than 100 years ago. Find our WWI footpath route on the walks page.
