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Medway Queen's History in Miniature

This series of photographs outlines Medway Queen’s history using small scale waterline models of ships. The photographs were first used for this purpose in an article in Marine Modelling International magazine in March 2017. The Medway Queen models are by Mountford and to give an idea of scale they are about 1 3/4 inches long. Photographing them presents challenges! The “supporting cast” are from other manufacturers mostly Triang (1950s) and Treforest Mouldings (pre-war). The pier is a generic Triang model.

The header shows, left to right, SS Shieldhall, MV Balmoral, PS Waverley and PS Medway Queen.
Photos by Jasmine Gregory and Richard Halton.

1. Medway Queen was launched in 1924 and entered service on her cross estuary route in that same year.
2. In 1937 she ran an excursion round the fleet for the Spithead Naval Review.​ Left is the Russian battleship "Marat", right is the Admiral Graf Spee.
3. HMS Medway Queen was a Royal Navy mine-sweeper from 1939 to 1946.
4. In 1940 HMS Medway Queen and her crew made 7 trips to Dunkirk and the beaches during the evacuation.
5. Excursion service resumed in 1947 until 1963. From 1966 to 1974 the ship was a restaurant, nightclub, disco on the Isle of Wight
6. In 1953 Medway Queen again attended a Spithead Review, both as an excursion vesel and part of the official fleet line-up.
7. Medway Queen entered preservation in a derelict state in 1984. In 2009 the hull rebuild commenced in Bristol and she is seen here being towed out of the dry dock in 2013.