North Gate House

TQ 9175 SW MAIN ROAD (North side), Sheerness Dockyard

2/99 North Gate House 15.03.1977 GV II

Guard house and police office, now offices. c1826 by George Ledwell Taylor, architect to the Navy Board and Sir John Rennie, engineer, extended late C19. Yellow stock brick with rubbed brick headers, granite plinth and limestone dressings, brick ridge and lateral stacks, and slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style. PLAN: 2-room single depth plan with stairs against outer dockyard wall. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 4-window range with 3-window S end and lower 1-window N block. A wide granite band beneath ground-floor windows, first-floor sill band, cornice and parapet; round-arched ground-floor windows in matching recesses; flat-headed first-floor windows, with 6/6-pane sashes; E elevation with blind windows against the stair apart from second bay from N. S entrance end rendered to the windowless ground floor, has an E round-arched doorway with fanlight with a central round pane and a 6-panel door with glazed top lights, first floor 6/6-pane sash over doorway and 2 blind windows. W windows all glazed, the lower N extension has paired ground-floor 4/4-pane sashes, and a single 4/4-pane sash above, N lateral stack and a single-storey N lavatory with parapet. INTERIOR contains a dogleg stair from the entrance with iron stick balusters and curtail, 6-panel doors, plain cornices and stone fire surrounds. HISTORY: originally the police house at the entrance to Sheerness Naval Dockyard, and formed the north entrance lodge. Connected to the E boundary wall (qv) and formerly linked to the S lodge (Nos 1 and 2 Main Gate (qv)) opposite by a granite colonnade. Unlike the other royal dockyards, Sheerness was all rebuilt at the same time. Within the little altered SE corner of Rennie's model layout, containing offices, the chapel and the officers' accommodation, and part of a unique planned early C19 dockyard. (Source: Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: 41 ).

Listing NGR: TQ9129875260