Former Pay Office Building Number 104

TQ 9175 SW MAIN ROAD (North side), Sheerness Dockyard 933/2/104 Former Pay Office, Building 18.01.1972 No.104

GV II

Pay office, now offices. 1828, probably by William Miller, Admiralty architect, and Sir John Rennie, engineer; altered 1892, repaired and extended after fire 1980s. Yellow stock brick with stone dressings, and slate hipped roof. PLAN: central axial hall with offices and pay room in the W bay and guard room in the 2 E bays, with 1987 single-room extension to the north. EXTERIOR: 2-storeys and basement; 5-bay front with 6-bay sides. Symmetrical front with plat band, cornice and blocking course, the three central bays set back, rubbed brick heads to round-arched windows all round, those in the front in matching recesses. Outer 2-light and inner 4-light transom windows with fanlights, central doorway with 2-leaf panelled doors, flat-headed first-floor 616-pane thin-bar sashes; formerly entrance to the left of the doorway. Matching side elevations, the E side with doorways at both ends. Rear formerly as the front, has 1987 2-storey extension, slightly lower but modelled on the front, with a 2 Tuscan columns to a flat canopy. INTERIOR not inspected, but reported to contain three cast-iron Tuscan columns along the axis of the hall, cantilevered stone open well stair to the right of the door (formerly another at the opposite end), NW strong room with an iron door, basement with fish-belly cast-iron joists across central passage; king post roof. HISTORY: built during the second phase of work in the Yard, after the dock walls and engineering works were complete. Has some similarities with the Pay Offices at Devonport and Portsmouth, both of which contain fire-proof elements (qqv). Unlike the other Royal dockyards, Sheerness was rebuilt all at the same time. The Pay Office is part of the complete north-east section of the Yard, part of a unique planned C19 dockyard. (Sources: Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: 41 ; Sheerness, The Dockyard, Defences and Blue Town: 1995: NMR BI 93279).

Listing NGR: TQ9120375234