Some of the most terrifying sea creatures to have ever been found in the depths of the oceans are being showcased in a spectacular new exhibition.

Monsters of the Deep, which is now open at the Historic Dockyard Chatham, features a vampire squid, giant sea spider and the chance to come ‘face to face’ with the kraken.

The new exhibition combines mythical tales and legendary creatures with scientific discoveries and real specimens.

Its aim is to both spark the imagination of guests and help them gain a better understanding of what lies beneath our shores.

The collections, stories and artefacts included in the exhibition come from all over the world; but throughout history, there have been some truly hair-raising sightings of sea creatures spotted in Medway, just a stone’s throw from the dockyard itself.

According to the British Newspaper Archive, one of the most well-reported sightings dates back to 1911 when a ‘sea serpent’ caught a local fisherman’s eye in Chatham.

The moment was covered by three newspapers - the Dublin Daily Express, the Torquay Times and the Belfast Telegraph - in which the serpent was described as being 30 feet long and six feet wide, with bulging green eyes and a rigid back.

Tom Pocock, the fisherman who spotted the creature in the River Medway, was said to have loaded the steel ball bearings from his son’s bicycle into his gun and shot them at the serpent, but it was spotted again several times by naval men, sailors and piermasters before seemingly disappearing for good.

The oldest sighting of an unusual sea creature in Medway dates back to 1850, when four dung barge labourers caught an 11-foot-long, six-foot-wide fish in Otterham Creek in Rainham.

The fish was unable to be identified by the men due to its unfamiliar appearance. It had the shape of a mackerel, the head of a salmon, large gold eyes, no scales and was blue in colour.

Sailors and naval officers at the time suggested it could have been a bonito fish from Florida or possibly a pilot fish.

Whatever it was, it put up a fight and the four men struggled to capture it. They used their dung forks to kill the fish and needed a horse and eight men to drag it onto a cart, where it was then transported to the Rising Sun pub in Chatham.

It was displayed in the Military Road public house and the fish was used to make meals for local visitors.

Before the century was out, a further two sea monsters were caught in the Medway area; a royal sturgeon weighing 130 lb was caught by Rochester fisherman Henry Mellish in 1868 and, in 1879, the Shields Daily Gazette reported that a ‘devil fish’ had been captured, also in Rochester.

The sturgeon was the largest to have ever been caught in the country at the time and was sent to Windsor Castle as a present to Queen Victoria, while the ‘devil fish’ was named as such due to its 3’8” mouth and several rows of sharp teeth.

Aside from Tom Pocock and his sea serpent, the frenzy around the monsters of the River Medway seemed to have settled down in the 1900s.

However, an article taken from the Sheerness Times Guardian in 1938 described a 36-foot-long whale that had been captured in the river after a chase from the Chatham Dockyard to Gillingham Gas Works, next to today's Strand.

While the story might have piqued some interest as to what could have been lurking below the waters of Medway at the time, it turned out to be a historical piece and the momentous capture of the whale actually took place in 1888.

A dig into our own archives saw a more recent discovery, reported in our very own Medway Messenger.

In July 2008, a woman called the newsdesk and claimed she had seen a 30-foot-long brown and grey sea creature that moved like an eel swimming against the tide near Rochester’s Esplanade.

After a whale, affectionately named Willy by London residents, got stuck in the River Thames in 2006, the Kent Messenger also looked back at a similar drama that took place more than 50 years beforehand in the River Medway.

The article reported that, in October 1949, the body of a narwhal - a medium-sized whale with a large protruding tusk - had washed up at Rectory Wharf in the village of Wouldham.

It was only the second time that the species had been washed ashore in the country in 500 years, and the body was taken to London to be displayed in the Natural History Museum.

There haven’t been many notable reports of astounding sightings in the last few years, but who knows - perhaps the new Monsters of the Deep exhibition will reignite the curiosity of visitors and lead to even more exciting discoveries below the waters of Medway?

Monsters of the Deep is at the Historic Dockyard Chatham until Sunday, November 19. You can book tickets online here.

The exhibition is free with a standard entry ticket to the dockyard, which costs £25 per adult and £15 per child when booked online in advance.