Pumping Station

Dock Pumping Station, West Road, Chatham Dockyard

A dock pumping station, now disused, dating from 1873 with later 19th-century and 20th-century alterations. It was designed by George B. Rennie, Superintendent Civil Engineer for H.M. Dockyard Chatham, with plant by George B. Rennie. The building is constructed of polychromatic yellow and red stock brick with a slate roof.

The building is arranged as a rectangular plan with an engine house to the north, a boiler house to the south, and a chimney to the south-east. The exterior comprises a single-storey range of 18 bays with a plinth and banded rustication below a moulded impost band. An inner two-storey range of 16 bays, narrower than the outer, has each bay separated by shallow pilasters rising to a ground-floor cornice and parapet. The upper floor features a triangular brick corbel frieze, cornice and parapet set forward to the pilasters.

At the north end, a five-bay section has a pedimented cornice over a round-arched entrance with rusticated voussoirs and an open lobby with double doors. Flanking this are round-arched ground-floor two-light windows with round-arched glazing bars, set in recesses with rusticated voussoirs and keystones. Corner bays contain pairs of smaller windows. The ground floor includes an open arcade, some of which has been blocked, with rusticated piers to inner arched windows. The upper floor has rusticated oculi to each bay. The three-bay north end incorporates a square accumulator tower to the north-east, with paired rusticated pilasters, cornice and parapet, and a round-arched window to each side.

At the south-east end, a square chimney truncated at the plinth is connected to the boiler house by a one-bay linking flue. Each side of the chimney has a plinth, blind arcade of three arches, cornice and pedimented coping, with a banded upper section featuring a corbelled frieze and weathered coping.

The interior is divided into two sections: to the north, the former engine pumping room retains a gantry crane and metal trussed roofs; to the south lies the former boiler room. Small rooms occupy corners with a small amount of later panelling. The accumulator tower to the north-east of the former engine room retains its central shaft. To the south-east, a brick flue leads to the truncated remains of the brick chimney base. All other above-ground plant has been removed. Some sub-surface remains such as culverts and shafts survive below the building's footprint, with recent preservative in-filling of foamed concrete.

This pump house was built as part of the late 19th-century expansion of Chatham Dockyard, which involved the construction of three great basins for the repair of war damage to ironclad warships. This pump house serviced Basin No. 1, a repairing basin of four docks on the east bank of the River Medway, powering the hydraulic system for the dock cranes and lock gates, probably using horizontal or vertical triple expansion steam engines.

The building is listed as an architecturally impressive Victorian pumping station. Beyond its exuberant polychromatic and arcaded elevations, it has historic interest as part of George B. Rennie's late 19th-century campaign to expand H.M. Dockyard Chatham. It holds group value with the numerous listed buildings of Chatham Dockyard, including the early 19th-century Grade II* pumping station by John Rennie Senior. The building was undergoing repair and plans for residential conversion in 2004.