Numbers 1 To 8 Attached Basement Railings, Walls, Coach House And Stables

A terrace of eight officers' houses, built between 1824 and 1827 by George Ledwell Taylor, the architect to the Navy Board, and Sir John Rennie, the engineer. The buildings are located within the Sheerness Dockyard. They are constructed of yellow stock brick with rubbed brick window heads, rendered dressings, a brick party wall, and end gable stacks, with a slate roof. The architectural style is late Georgian.

The houses are arranged with a double-depth plan, and have three storeys, an attic, and a basement. The front facade has a 22-window range, a plat band, and an eaves cornice to a blocking course. The left-hand house has a recessed entrance, while the others have round-arched basement doorways with fanlights containing a central round pane, each with a six-panel door (the four upper doors are raised). The two central blocks feature paired doorways, and the right-hand house has a flat-headed doorway with a four-pane overlight. Windows have rendered reveals and contain six-pane sashes on the main floors, and three-pane sashes in the attic. The right-hand return has two lateral stacks on moulded corbels, with a window to the right of the door and two first-floor windows above it. A single attic sash completes this elevation. The left-hand return, flush with the dock boundary wall, has a two-window range with a lunette and batwing fanlight over the entrance hall. The rear fenestration mirrors the front.

The interior of No. 1 house features an entrance hall with a dogleg staircase with cast-iron stick balusters and fluted newels, six-panel doors and panelled shutters, and enriched cornices. Attached to the front are cast-iron basement area railings with urn finials, overlooking a curved green enclosed by a dwarf retaining wall with granite coping, formerly with iron railings. A brick garden wall extends approximately 30 meters north to the former coach houses and stables, which have a hipped roof and parapet, and segmental-arched coach doors with stable doors in raised sections.

The houses historically accommodated eight senior yard officers, and form a notable group with the railed front garden and the dockyard church. Due to the site's remoteness, Sheerness had proportionately more officer accommodation than other Royal dockyards. The entire dockyard was rebuilt at the same time, and these houses are part of a unique planned early 19th century dockyard layout.