Chatham House (Number 14) And Attached Front Area And Step Railings

Chatham House (Number 14) is a terrace of 14 houses, now offices, situated on New Road in Chatham. They were built in 1794, with later extensions around 1812. The houses are constructed of brick with stone dressings, some having weatherboarded rear elevations, brick ridge and party wall stacks, and hipped slate and tile roofs.

The terrace is generally three storeys high with a basement. Most houses have a three-window front, however, Number 14 has four windows, and numbers 12 and 16 have two. The raised ground floor over a rendered basement is characterised by round-arched openings linked by a channelled impost band, topped by a thin cornice and parapet. Number 14 is set forward, featuring flights of steps up to a central porch with columns, entablature blocks, and a broken pediment. The porch has a doorway with an architrave, a radial fanlight, and a six-panel door. Flanking this are wider tripartite windows with segmental arches on the ground floor, also with radial fanlights, and flat-headed windows above and to the basement. The middle and right-hand windows are narrower six-over-six-pane sashes. A large, early 20th-century square lantern is raised behind the parapet and has seven windows front and back, along with a square lantern on top. A round-arched doorway on the right-hand side has 20th-century French windows, and a central C20 door leads to the stairs. The surrounding two-window houses have an inner round-arched doorway and an outer ground-floor segmental-arched tripartite window. First-floor windows are six-over-six-pane, and second-floor windows are three-over-six-pane sashes. Houses to the left are similarly styled, with round-arched ground-floor openings, and steps up to right-hand doorways with fanlights and six-panel doors. Numbers 24 and 26 have a pedimented parapet with an oval panel, while Number 32 lacks steps and a door and is partially integrated with Number 30. Numbers 32 and 34 have mid-19th century two-light ground-floor bays. Numbers 22-30 have weatherboarded rear elevations and slate hipped roofs.

The interior of Number 14 is notable for its Ionic columns on the basement level and an elaborate early 20th-century staircase designed in an early 18th-century style. This includes fluted newels, column-on-vase balusters, and a ramped moulded rail. The other houses generally feature dogleg staircases from the entrance hall, with stick balusters, column newels, dado, cornice, and rising sashes.

Attached to the front of the terrace are iron railings with foliate and urn finials, as well as decorative cast-iron balusters.

The terrace likely wasn't all built at the same time, with differing rooflines and rear elevations suggesting an attempt to unify an earlier, less uniform row. Despite the use of weatherboarded rear elevations, it represents Chatham’s most advanced architectural terrace.