Former Pay Office Building Number 104

The former Pay Office, now offices, was built in 1828, likely by William Miller, the Admiralty architect, and Sir John Rennie, the engineer. It was altered in 1892, repaired, and extended in the 1980s following a fire. The building is constructed of yellow stock brick with stone dressings and has a slate hipped roof.

The plan comprises a central axial hall with offices and a pay room in the western bay, and a guard room in the two eastern bays, with a single-room extension added to the north in 1987. The building is two storeys with a basement, featuring a five-bay front and six-bay sides. The symmetrical front has a plat band, cornice, and blocking course, with the three central bays set back, and rubbed brick heads to round-arched windows throughout. The windows are transom windows with fanlights, with two lights on the outer bays and four lights on the inner bays. There’s a central doorway with two-leaf panelled doors, and flat-headed first-floor sashes with 616 panes and thin bars; a former entrance was located to the left of the doorway. The side elevations are similar with doorways at both ends. The rear elevation, formerly mirroring the front, now has a two-storey extension added in 1987, slightly lower but designed to resemble the front, with two Tuscan columns supporting a flat canopy.

The interior is reported to feature three cast-iron Tuscan columns along the hall axis, a cantilevered stone open well stair to the right of the door, (with a former stair on the opposite end), a strong room with an iron door in the northwest corner, a basement containing fish-belly cast-iron joists across the central passage, and a king post roof.

The building was constructed during the second phase of work in the Sheerness Dockyard, after the dock walls and engineering works. It shares characteristics with the Pay Offices at Devonport and Portsmouth, both incorporating fire-proof elements. Sheerness Dockyard was unique amongst Royal dockyards as it was rebuilt entirely at once. The Pay Office forms part of the complete north-east section of the yard, representing a unique planned 19th-century dockyard.