Riverside Gardens share their history with that of the Paddock. Formally marshland until the Land Wall (now Globe Lane) was built as a transport route from Rochester to the dockyard (1633/1588), and dammed the marsh from the River Medway. The land was reclaimed and built to form a tidal pool to drive the Chatham Mill. During C18, as the area around Chatham Dockyards underwent significant militarisation, the tidal pool was filled in to provide land for New Gun Wharf, in order to bring in supplies and armaments to the expanding defensive fort system of the area. In 1819, the White House was built on the eastern edge of New Gun Wharf. New Fun Wharf remained in use by the army until 1955. In 1963, a photograph shows a public space composed of a few mature trees set in mown grassland with benches and unbrellas for public enjoyment. The boundaries of Riverside Gardens follow those of New Gun Wharf on which the park is laid out. Historically marsh and then mill pond, the reclaimed land is now a roughly level site with some minor undulations along the east-west path, rising gradually to the east where it meets Dock Road. The area itself is now a mixture of mown grass and grassland planted with numerous mixed decideous young trees, some beech hedging around the carpark, as well as mature trees (including a yew, an oak, a lime, and three horse chestnut trees).