The North Foreland Public House

The North Foreland Public House

This is a house dating from around 1630, now converted to use as a public house, with significant phases of alteration from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. Most notably, it received a complete neo-Tudor façade in 1912.

The building is constructed of snecked stone and render to the front (south), yellow stock brick to the west, and weather-boarding to the rear. The roof is covered in clay tiles, with slate covering the two-storey range to the west.

The building comprises three storeys with a basement that is above ground level to the rear. The front elevation features three small gable-ended roofs running parallel with the High Street. To the rear, a deeply pitched gable-ended roof is set at right angles to the High Street. A massive central chimney stack rises through the building, with a rebuilt chimney above roof level. To the east of the building, broadly parallel with the central stack, is a winder stair with a stack positioned immediately to its south. A two-storey range stands alongside the west side of the building, with its first floor at High Street level; this was a self-contained building until 1986.

The exterior displays an Edwardian neo-Tudor style façade dated to 1912. The front features stone mullioned windows glazed with square leaded lights, with hood moulds on the first floor. The principal door is surmounted by a carved shield bearing an abbreviation of the brewery name (Woodhams and Co). The 1912 neo-Tudor detailing is well-preserved, including original rainwater goods and a hanging sign bracket. The rear of the building shows irregularly positioned and sized windows, generally composed of timber sliding sash windows of varying dates from after the mid-18th century onwards.

Internally, the public bar occupies the ground floor at High Street level. The front room, most likely formerly two separate rooms, is dominated by the bar counter. While most interior bar fittings date from the early 20th century or later, the room retains an area of 18th-century panelling to the east. The rear room contains a large fireplace feeding into the central stack. This fireplace features an elaborate 17th-century overmantel decorated with strapwork panels interspaced with carved male and female terms. There are spaces for four terms, but one is missing. The winder stair to the east displays 18th-century detail, with a closed string, turned vase balusters, and a broad handrail.

At first-floor level to the rear there is a second large fireplace also feeding into the central stack. This has a substantial overmantel featuring a central strapwork panel with flanking panels decorated with arches and split-turned pendants, the three panels separated by fluted pilasters. Further rooms occupy the second floor, with an attic room to the rear. The roof timbers to the front half of the building appear to date from the late 18th or 19th century, whereas those to the rear are considerably larger in section and lack a ridge piece. Throughout the building, various structural timbers are visible within ceilings and walls, and several areas of 18th-century panelling survive to the east of the building at ground and first-floor levels.

Historically, street directories confirm that The North Foreland was operating as a public house by 1858. An indenture relating to a house known by the sign of the North Foreland indicates it may have been trading as a public house prior to 1786. The building has undergone numerous phases of alteration, with the most significant recent intervention being its re-fronting in 1912 by Woodhams and Co Brewery.

The building stands in a riverside location between the centres of Rochester and Chatham. When Chatham Dockyard was founded in the mid-16th century, a short distance to the north, it attracted an influx of population to Chatham and created demand for housing. Evidence from maps, written sources, and surviving built fabric indicates that this area underwent development from the late 16th to early 17th century, featuring high-status dwellings some associated with prominent naval figures including Sir John Hawkins (1532–1595), treasurer to the Navy from 1577, and the Pett family, master shipwrights at Deptford and Chatham in the 16th and 17th centuries. The Pett family mansion, now demolished, is described in early 19th-century sources as standing "Beyond the victualling office, on the same side of the High-street". The naval victualling office itself stood less than 100 metres to the west of the North Foreland from around 1694 to around 1840. Evidence of a late 16th to early 17th-century building incorporated into what is now No. 375 High Street, Rochester, is believed to be the remains of a mansion associated with the Sir John Hawkins Hospital, founded in 1592, which stands immediately to the east. A short distance further east is No. 4 Hammond Hill, another early 17th-century dwelling. While the history of this area remains largely unresearched, The North Foreland appears to form part of a significant pattern of development with strong links to the development of Chatham Dockyard.