The PS Medway Queen is a paddle driven steamship, the only mobile estuary paddle steamer left in the United Kingdom. She was one of the "little ships of Dunkirk", making a record seven trips and rescuing 7,000 men in the evacuation of Dunkirk. She was the subject of a £1.8 million National Lottery Heritage Memorial Fund grant to restore her hull. By 2014, her hull had been reconstructed and she is berthed at Gillingham Pier on the River Medway . History PS Medway Queen was built by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company at Troon, Scotland, in 1924 for service on the River Medway and in the Thames Estuary. Trialled on the River Clyde, she was delivered to be part of the "Queen Line" fleet of the New Medway Steam Packet Company based at Rochester, Kent. She steamed on routes from Strood and Chatham, to Sheerness, Herne Bay and Margate in Kent, and to Clacton and Southend in Essex. On 3 August 1929, Medway Queen collided with Southend Pier, Essex, and suffered extensive damage to her bows. After attending the Coronation Fleet Review for King George VI at Spithead, Medway Queen was converted to oil-fired steaming by Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company in 1937. World War II Requisitioned by the Royal Navy on 9 September 1939, her first task was evacuating Kent children from Gravesend to East Anglia. She was refitted at the shipyard of the General Steam Navigation Company in Deptford Creek as a minesweeper, her stern being modified to take sweeping gear, being fitted with a 12-pounder gun and two machine guns, and allocated pennant number J 48 (N 48). She served for the duration of World War II in the 10th Minesweeping Flotilla, patrolling the Strait of Dover and the English Channel. In May 1940 Operation Dynamo was launched to rescue retreating British Army soldiers from Dunkirk in northern France. HMS Medway Queen became part of the flotilla of little ships. She left with paddle steamers Sandown, Thames Queen, Gracie Fields, Queen of Thanet, , Laguna Belle and Brighton Belle. She made seven crossings. On her first trip, approximately 600 soldiers were taken off De Panne beach in lifeboats and ferried to the ship. On her return to Dover, her arrival coincided with an air raid. She shot down a German aircraft outside the harbour. The Brighton Belle ran over sunken wreckage and began to sink. All of her