Numbers 1 To 15 And Attached Railings

TQ 9175 SW 933/2/90 15.3.77

REGENCY CLOSE Sheerness Dockyard Nos 1-15 ( Consecutive ) and attached railings

GV II*

Terrace of officers' houses, now 15 houses and offices. c1829-33, by George ledwell Taylor, architect to the Navy Board, and John Rennie Snr, engineer. Yellow stock brick with rubbed brick heads and rendered dressings, party wall and end gable ridge brick ridge stacks, and slate mansard roof. Late Georgian style. PLAN: double-depth plan, possibly originally back-to-back houses divided into two at the rear. EXTERIOR: each 2 storeys, attic and basement; 5-window range. The terrace has a rendered plat band, cornice and blocking course; each house has a central timber porch with paired pilasters, cornice and blocking course, with architraves to the doorway with double 6-panel door with raised panels, and to 9-pane windows to the sides. Flat-headed windows have 6/6- pane sashes and rendered reveals, and flat-headed attic dormers have 6/6-pane sashes. Similar rear with early C20 lavatories projecting over central entrances on iron posts; the windows of each section spaced 3:2 with the door to the left. INTERIOR: the front houses have a central hall, enriched cornices, panelled shutters and doors, the rear, with similar fittings, has a curved dogleg stair from the entrance hall with stick balusters, fluted newel and curtail, and an inner back door with stained glass margin panes. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron basement area spear-headed railings with urn finials. HISTORY: housed Yard Officers, a matching design to the adjoining Commissioner's House (qv) and referred to as "Houses for Inferior Officers" (Coad). It is accordingly less grand than Nos 1-8 Naval Terrace (qv). There was proportionately more accommodation at Sheerness than the other dockyards because of the remoteness of the site. The original internal planning is unclear, but each house may always have been divided into three. Unlike the other Royal dockyards, Sheerness was all rebuilt at the same time. Forms part of the little-altered SE corner of Rennie's model layout, containing the entrance, chapel and officers' accommodation, and part of a unique planned early (19 dockyard. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 54; Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: 41; Sheerness, The Dockyard, Defences and Blue Town: 1995: 1).

Listing NGR: TQ9135175102