Former Storehouse Number 2 And Former Rigging Store

TQ 7568 NE CHATHAM ANCHOR WHARF (East side) Chatham Dockyard 762-1/1/34 Former Storehouse No.2 and Former Rigging Store

GV I

Warehouse and rigging store. 1793-96. Brick with stone dressings and a slate hipped roof. PLAN: rectangular single-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and basement, with attics in 3 sections; 3:13:5:13:3- window range. A symmetrical block has taller end and central sections, with ground-floor plat band, cornice and overhanging eaves, the middle block has the central 3-window section set forward. 3-storey sections have middle 3-bays set forward and hoist bays to middle of outer 5-bay sections with double doors and braced iron pivot hoists to the side of the top doors. Rubbed brick flat arches to 8/8-pane sashes and 4/8-pane second-floor sashes. End returns have single round-arched hoist bays with double doors and top 5-light lunette. A C20 bridge connects with the N end of Storehouse No.3 (qv) to the first and second floor hoist bays, replacing an original bridge. At the south end of the east elevation is a mid C19 extension, linked to the west wall of the ropery (qv), with gauged red brick semicircular arches providing access to throughway and internal late C19 iron trusses. INTERIOR: divided into a series of 3-bay timber frames, of very heavy scantling. Some tin-lined ceilings and solid double cast-iron panelled doors between firebreak walls. The internal posts set close together down the axis, with a railed route for wagons between. HISTORY: the N half was a Fitted Rigging House, and the S half for storage. Part of the longest warehouse range in Britain, and with Storehouse No.3 and surviving examples at Portsmouth naval dockyard it is certainly one of the most significant examples of industrial warehousing in Europe: they predate the large early C19 warehouse stacks of the London docks. There were formally pediments to the centre of the lower sections. Built during the extensive late C18 rebuilding of the dockyard, and with the N warehouse and Ropery (qqv), part of a fine group of Georgian naval dockyard buildings. The use of tin represents an early attempt at fireproofing in industrial buildings. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 160 ; MacDougall P: The Chatham Dockyard Story: Rainham: 1987: 91 ; The Buildings of England: Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London: 1976: 205; Dockland an illustrated historical survey of life and work: Tucker M: Warehouses in Docklands: London: 1986: 21-31).

Listing NGR: TQ7578268963