North Gate House

North Gate House is a guard house and police office, later converted into offices, built around 1826. It was designed by George Ledwell Taylor, the architect to the Navy Board, and Sir John Rennie, the engineer, with later extensions in the late 19th century. The building is constructed of yellow stock brick with rubbed brick headers, a granite plinth, limestone dressings, brick ridge and lateral stacks, and a slate hipped roof. It is an example of late Georgian style architecture.

The building has a two-room, single-depth plan with a staircase against the outer dockyard wall. It is two storeys high and has a four-window range, with a three-window southern end and a lower one-window northern block. A granite band runs beneath the ground-floor windows, with a first-floor sill band, cornice, and parapet above. The ground-floor windows are round-arched and recessed, while the first-floor windows are flat-headed and contain 6/6-pane sashes. The eastern elevation has blind windows except for the second bay from the north. The southern entrance end has a rendered ground floor with no windows, and a wide round-arched doorway with a fanlight featuring a central round pane and a six-panel door with glazed top lights. A 6/6-pane sash window sits above the doorway, along with two blind windows. The western windows are all glazed, and the lower northern extension has paired ground-floor 4/4-pane sashes and a single 4/4-pane sash above. A northern lateral stack and a single-storey northern lavatory with a parapet are also present.

The interior features a dogleg staircase with iron stick balusters and a curtail, six-panel doors, plain cornices, and stone fire surrounds. Originally, the building served as the police house at the entrance to Sheerness Naval Dockyard and formed the north entrance lodge. It is connected to the east boundary wall and was formerly linked to the south lodge, now numbered 1 and 2 Main Gate, by a granite colonnade. Sheerness Dockyard was rebuilt in its entirety, and this building sits within the southeastern corner of Rennie’s plan. This section housed offices, the chapel, officers’ accommodation and a unique planned early 19th-century dockyard layout.