Marvellously Murky In Upper Upnor

The weather today was absolutely atrocious - it felt like it hardly ever got light at all and the rain lashed down in almost biblical proportions with hardly any respite.
We had to head out to our nearest Post Office depot to collect what we thought might be a late Christmas present but turned out to be a magazine which could have just been put through the letterbox. As we were already out anyway we decided to continue our journey on to the village of Upnor, a couple of miles outside Rochester.
In fact Upnor consists of two separate villages - Lower Upnor and Upper Upnor. As Lower Upnor has featured on previous blips we decided to stop off at its Upper sibling on this occasion.
Upper Upnor's High Street consists of a steeply sloped cobbled street of no more than twenty houses but still manages to accommodate two pubs, The King's Arms and The Tudor Rose, a plethora of wooden sculptures (including a mermaid), spectacular views from the western bank of the River Medway and not least its very own castle. It's such an incredibly atmospheric place that it could almost be a film set.
It also feels like a bit of hidden gem as it is not that easy to find unless you're already of aware it. It also mixes the wonderfully picturesque with an industrial heritage - so of course this meant I went for the latter for my main mage for today! It's a view from the bottom of the High Street across the Medway towards Chatham Dockyard. By the time we had arrived the rain had stopped albeit very briefly but the murky conditions created a marvellously evocative and almost haunting feeling.
Whilst we were there of course it would be rude not to try one of its two drinking establishments. So we settled on frequenting The King's Arms at the top of the High Street just as it began to pour down again. It felt like it was in a time warp of its own - looking like the decor had not changed since the 1980's - but it was welcoming and the pints (an Adnam's dry-hopped lager) were great.
In case it was feeling left out we took a quick zip down to Lower Upnor, where I took my extra image of a rather gargantuan houseboat jutting out across the mudflats.