Jacksons Recreation Ground, Fort Pitt Gardens (and Victoria Gardens) form an interconnected group of three late C19 to mid C20 public gardens and parks in which remnants of their original design survive. Victoria Gardens commemorates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 while the land for Jacksons Recreation Ground was donated by the Mayor of Rochester, John Howard Jackson, in 1914. In 1871 the land now occupied by both Fort Pitt Gardens and the Jacksons Recreation Ground was acquired by the City of Rochester on a short tenancy from the War Department as a public recreation ground at a rental of £56/annum. By 1914 the City of Rochester had all three gardens in its posession.

The land upon which the gardens are now situated can be traced back to remnant earthworks surring the former C19 Fort Pitt itself, completed in 1818, before being converted to a military hospital in 1828. While Jackson Recreation Ground was opened to the public in 1914, it was not until 1946 that Fort Pitt Gardens were established when the Parks Committee re-profiled the naturally steep slope into the Gardens. During the 1940s RAF aerial photographs show Jackson Recreation Ground being extensively used by the military with defensive earthworks being created. Fort Pitt Gardens are shown as being used as air raid shelters by the hospital. Jackson Recreation Ground was reinstated in 1948. Little remains of Fort Pitt Gardens original design, however, Jacksons Recreation Ground retains a number of more original features.

In 2013, the Kent Gardens Trust conducted a review of the historic information relating to the sites of Jackson Recreation Ground, Fort Pitt Gardens, and Victoria Gardens, Chatham.

Taken from the review:
"STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE: Jacksons Recreation Ground, Fort Pitt Gardens and Victoria Gardens form an interconnected group of three late C19 to mid C20 public gardens and parks in which remnants of their original design survive. All three are laid out over the redundant, surviving remnant earthworks surrounding the former C19 Fort Pitt, their landforms reflecting the underlying topography of the earthworks. The sites thus have archaeological potential; they are also a repository for both local and national collective memories of Chatham’s vital role in the defence of the United Kingdom from the C18 to the end of World War II. The sites represent Rochester and Chatham’s response in the C19 and early C20 to providing open space for the health and wellbeing of the inhabitants plus local acts of philanthropy: Victoria Gardens commemorates Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee in 1897 while the land for Jacksons Recreation Ground was donated by the Mayor of Rochester, John Howard Jackson, in 1914. All three sites contribute to the scenic quality of the wider area through the panoramic views they offer over the towns, the River Medway and beyond and in views from the historic New Road, the main route between Rochester and Chatham since 1783.

Historic Information:
The hill site of Fort Pitt, south of Chatham, appears to have been farmed from at least Roman times…During the C18 the War Department purchased the land in order to defend Chatham docks from the south…The purchase was confirmed by act of parliament in 1762 with the 12h (30 acres) of land initially used as a troop encampment.
Debbeig the chief Engineer at Chatham describes in a letter dated October 1783 that “a great quantity of chalk to make lime has been dug there…two fields…have been ploughed up for the purpose of picking stones for the New Road..(and)…sod has been cut for banking up the sides of the above road” (Kendall 2005). A B Walker’s map of Chatham dated 1781-83 shows two roads approximately 100m apart running parallel to each other east to west across the hill site. The most northern of these roads is referred to by Hasted in his History of Kent published in 1798 as ‘a new road (the current New Road forming the sites’ northern boundaries)
[this New Road forms the northern boundary of all three of the garden sites]

Fort Pitt appears to have been completed by 1813 (Kendall 2005) and remained as such into the 1820’s. However in 1828 it was converted to a hospital for invalided soldiers and by 1847 an asylum for servicemen was built within an enclosed section of the fort. By 1849 it became a general military hospital. In 1860 Florence Nightingale started the first Army Medical School on the site whilst waiting for the completion of a new school at Netley (Howard c1993)…The Tithe map and apportionment of 1841/2 confirms the Ordnance Department’s ownership and describes the land as “pasture” occupied by various tenants. Owing to its military use, the 1st edition OS map (1862-1875) omits all details associated with Fort Pitt but the earthwork scarp, formed by the creation of the terrace which runs east to west immediately south of the bowling green and tennis courts, is clearly shown.

In 1871 the land now occupied by both Fort Pitt Gardens and the Jacksons Recreation Ground was acquired by the City of Rochester on a short tenancy from the War Department as a public recreation ground at a rental of £56/annum.
In May 1909 negotiations commenced and a contract was entered into for the purchase of the land at £190/acre with the Council agreeing to a covenant that the land always be used as a public recreation ground. In October 190xx Chatham Town Council purchased the Victoria Gardens (qv) to the immediate east, which they had laid out as a pleasure ground in 1897…In 1914 the City of Rochester Corporation was informed that a citizen had purchased the land from the War Office and had presented it to the City under a deed of gift, to be held as recreation grounds (History of Rochester 1928). The area later known as Jacksons Recreation Ground was opened to the public on 9 March 1914.

Although both sites appear to have been enclosed by park fencing, evidence suggests that it was only Jacksons Recreation Ground that was opened to the public at this date as early C20 photographs show sheep still grazing on the land later to be known as Fort Pitt Gardens
… Early C20 photographs refer to Jacksons Recreation Ground as Fort Pitt Gardens (Couchman Collection DE402/10/15U), suggesting that the whole area was so called, prior to its western part being renamed once it became public knowledge that Jackson was the benefactor.

Aerial photographs, taken by the RAF during the late 1940s, indicate that both grounds were used extensively during the war. Defensive earthworks are shown running from the north-east corner of the Jacksons Recreation Ground south-west to City Way and then southwards alongside City Way. A structure which may be a reservoir is located on the terrace where the children’s playground is now situated and scars on the sports field survive from military activity. Fort Pitt Gardens provided air-raid shelters dug into the chalk for the hospital on the opposite side of New Road. Reinstatement of Jacksons Recreation Ground took place in 1948 with photographs of that date showing pale strips of ground replacing the defensive works.

Fort Pitt Gardens were established in 1946 when the Parks Committee re-profiled the naturally steep slope into the Gardens. Lime trees were planted along the boundary with New Road and fresh turf laid over the sites of the hospital air-raid shelters with flower beds on the terraced slopes.

The Sites:

The adjacent sites of Jacksons Recreation Ground and Fort Pitt Gardens lie about 1km west of Chatham town centre and 1.5 km southeast of the city of Rochester, to the immediate south of New Road…The roughly triangular sites slope steeply from the south-east to the north-west, their heights varying between approximately 50 and 22 metres above sea level…Jacksons Recreation Ground’s triangular c9ha (21 acres) site lies west of Fort Pitt Gardens, between City Way to the west and New Road to the north. The New Road boundary is unfenced, although a low stone wall, approximately 600mm high, constructed from broken paving stones, identifies the boundary from a point 40m south of the junction along City Way eastwards along New Road for 250m to the boundary of Fort Pitt House…Fort Pitt Gardens lie adjacent to the east and occupy 1.2ha (3acres) of steeply sloping land immediately to the south of New Road. Victoria Gardens lies to the east, Jacksons Recreation Ground to the west and the University for the Creative Arts to the south. Fort Pitt Gardens are unfenced. Their northern boundary along New Road is a low stone wall formed from broken paving stones similar to that demarking the New Road boundary of Jacksons Recreation Ground. This wall extends around its eastern boundary on Fort Pitt Hill Road, which separates these Gardens from Victoria Gardens…The London to Chatham railway line runs in a tunnel under these gardens.

[Jacksons Recreation Ground is shown in photgraphs as being bounden by iron railings. The railings no longer exist. There are some remaining gates to the park. Fort pitt House lies within the northern boundary of Jacksons Recreation Ground, dating to c1800, it was built by the War Department.]

The Present Day Gardens(2013):

The principal feature of Jacksons Recreation Ground is the large (approximately 100 x 70m) sports field. It is laid out on a terrace, located directly over the now barely-visible earthworks to Delce Tower, cut into the natural slope on the uphill side and built out from it on the downhill side. The field is currently (2013) used for a variety of different events including fairs and circuses. In the past football matches were played there but there is no evidence that football is now (2013) played. In 1910 the Bath and West and Southern Counties Society held their annual agricultural show over the entire Ground and on additional ground in the former Borough of Chatham to the south and east.

Four tennis courts and a bowling green, covering an area of 120 x 30m, occupy a terrace which runs parallel to and approximately 10m south of New Road. The tennis courts were established in the early 1920s with the bowling green a few years later (Chatham News 26 October 1928). The tennis courts are screened by a conifer hedge along the west side and a privet hedge along the north boundary. The bowling green is currently (2013) leased by Cranbourne Bowling Club whose association with the green stretches back for at least sixty years (Medway Archives RCA/C51/15/4)…A grass bank between the tennis courts the bowling club and New Road is laid out with ten flower beds and a line of ornamental trees equally spaced along the New Road elevation. These beds have been in existence for at least sixty years as a former resident commented on them in 1951 (Medway Archives RCA/C51/15/4).
Other features include a skate/bmx park built in 2007/8 and located along the eastern boundary towards the southern end. Pockets of ornamental trees are planted around the ground, including on the eastern boundary by the gate to the University and around a circular rose bed now (2013) in poor condition to the east of Fort Pitt House. The path between the tennis courts and the playground is lined with ornamental trees including sycamore and Norway maple.

Little remains of Fort Pitt Gardens which were laid out post war in 1946. They currently (2013) comprise amenity grass with some close-clipped evergreen shrubs. Three rose beds on a terrace create a feature at the eastern end of the site. The tarmac paths, now (2013) in poor condition, traverse the site from east to west occasionally leading to a mixture of semi-mature ornamental deciduous and conifer trees some of which may originate from the 1940s." (1)

<1> Kent Gardens Trust, 2013, The Kent Compendium of Historic Parks and Gardens for Medway: Jacksons Recreation Ground and Fort Pitt Gardens, Chatham (Unpublished document). SKE31414.