182 Chatham – Historic Dockyard – Brompton – Gillingham – Twydall

The 182 begins at Chatham Waterfront Bus Station, hard by the Medway with the masts of the Historic Dockyard visible across the water. Pulling out from Stop B13, the bus immediately picks up the steep banks of Fort Amherst, the ramparted Napoleonic fortress that still tunnels into the chalk above the town. The council offices opposite mark the boundary of the old garrison, and within a few minutes the bus is alongside the imposing brick walls and ornate Main Gate of Chatham Historic Dockyard, where HMS Victory was built and where Britain's wooden walls were maintained for four centuries.

Climbing up into Brompton, the character shifts again. This compact Georgian garrison village sits on a plateau above the dockyard, its tight grid of streets lined with handsome terraces built for naval officers and Royal Engineers. The bus rolls past the High Street and the familiar landmark of the King Charles Hotel before dropping down into Gillingham proper.

In Gillingham the route becomes properly urban: Medway Park's war memorial, Jeffery Street and Victoria Street form the busy spine of the town centre, with shoppers spilling between the high street and the covered market. Past Aldi and Duncan Road the bus heads east through Barnsole, taking in Livingstone Circus and the leafier residential roads around Barnsole School and The Cricketers pub.

From here the 182 settles into the long suburban run through eastern Gillingham, past the Academy of Woodlands and Beatty Avenue, before reaching Twydall. The estate, largely a post-war development of low brick terraces, semis and tidy greens, is served by a careful loop: Featherby Road, Eastcourt Green, Goudhurst Road, Twydall Shops, Bodiam Close, Begonia Avenue and Hawthorne Avenue, then round Pump Lane roundabout and back via Beechings Green and Wingham Close.

The return leg retraces the same path in reverse, threading back through Twydall Evangelical Church, Gillingham King Street and Britton Farm Mall, before climbing once more to Brompton and easing down past the Dockyard gate to finish at Stop D17 on the Waterfront. It is a short journey, but one that stitches together more than three centuries of Medway life in a single loop.