Former Police Offices And Attached Wall

TQ 7568 NE CHATHAM MAIN GATE ROAD (East side) Chatham Dockyard 762-1/1/63 Former Police Offices and attached wall 24.5.71

GV II*

Guard house, police offices, now offices. 1764, altered 1815. Stucco and stone dressings, cast-iron columns, rear lateral stack and slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style. Single-depth plan. EXTERIOR: single storey; 11-bay colonnade. A long open colonnade of 10 cast-iron Doric columns to an entablature and coped parapet, with a flagged pavement in front of 4 doorways set back; three early C19 6/6-pane sashes, the rest later C19 and C20 horned replacements. Parapeted 7-window left-hand range level with the colonnade, with a doorway 2 from the left with a cornice. Backs on to the former perimeter wall which extends from the Main entrance and south stables (qqv). INTERIOR: contains late C20 offices. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: Wall encloses small yard to extreme left. To the right is a rendered brick wall, ramped at the left-hand end and with a doorway to the right, which extends to meet the Main Gate (qv). HISTORY: built to house the marines who were in the late C18 increasingly responsible for dockyard security. The columns were originally timber, and replaced in iron in 1815. Backs onto the perimeter wall attached to the Main Gate (qv), and forms an important element at the entrance to the Dockyard. Part of a fine assemblage of Georgian naval buildings. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 152 ; MacDougall P: The Chatham Dockyard Story: Rainham: 1987: 164).

Listing NGR: TQ7590468928