The Hospital Of Sir John Hawkins And Attached Front Railings

The Hospital of Sir John Hawkins is a group of almhouses, now converted to sheltered housing, dating from 1789. The original foundation for the almshouses was made in 1592 by Sir John Hawkins, who established a scheme with Drake in 1590 known as the "Chatham Chest" to provide for poor seamen, shipwrights, and their wives.

The buildings are constructed of brick with a rendered plinth, brick rear stacks, and a tiled hipped roof. The design includes two parallel ranges, each containing four single-depth houses that face a central quadrangle, with a Council House at the rear and a further range of three houses.

The front ranges are two storeys high, with one window per almshouse. The parapeted flat gables facing the street feature a plinth, a blind round-headed arch, and a rectangular sunken panel above. Each house has doorways towards the rear, and three-light mullion and transom windows with central metal casements and leaded lights. The Council Room is a single-storey, three-bay range, with a shallow pedimented gable above the doorway and round-arched openings flanking the door, which contains a radial fanlight and a flush-panelled door. Blocked windows are located on either side of the entrance. A brick archway to the right of the Council Room leads to a 19th-century range of yellow brick houses that match the front ranges.

The interior consists of a hall passage leading to 20th-century lateral stairs, and the building was altered in 1983.

Attached to the front of the building are metal railings fixed to dwarf walls, connected by a central round overthrow.

The almshouses are notable for being little altered since their rebuild in 1789, possessing classical details and an unusual central Council House. They also hold historical significance as a rebuilding of Sir John Hawkins's original 1592 almshouses and as an early example of maritime charitable bequests.