Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1856 to 1860 Iron framed boat store, built 1859 Shed 78 Sheerness Docks (formerly listed as The Boat Store). Built 1859.

Monument Types

• BOAT HOUSE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1856 AD to 2050 AD)

Full description

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Description from record TQ 97 NW 5:
[TQ 9087 7530 - sited from H.H.R. map] Shed No. 78 (formerly listed as The Boat Store), Grade II*, Sheerness Docks. Built 1859 by Colonel G. T. Greene. Since the destruction of the Crystal Palace and the 1st South Kensington Museum this is the earliest surviving example of multi-storey iron-frame and panel filling structure. (For full description see list.) (1). Additional bibliography (2,3). Additional reference, in relation to rest of Sheerness defences (4). For site in context of industrial sites in Kent, see (5) and site photographs (6-10).

Description from record TQ 97 NW 1026:
Built 1859 by Col G T Greene. Earliest surviving multi-storey iron-frame and panel filling structure. 3 parallel aisles, central being the Boat House and undivided from floor to roof. 4 storey side aisles have 14 bays separated by cast iron columns. The 5 windows between each pair of columns are very closely spaced. Corrgated iron filling beneath except 1946 brickwork to ground floor. (1)

A history of the building and details of its importance in relation to structural history. (11) Labelled plan (12)

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TQ 9075 SE ANCHOR LANE
Sheerness Dockyard
933/5/113
The Boat Store
21.06.1962 Building Number 78
GV I
Boat store, warehouse, disused. 1856-60, by Col GT Green RE and William Scamp, for the Admiralty Works Department, ironwork by Henry Grissell's Regents Canal Iron Works. Wrought-iron with corrugated iron cladding and roof. PLAN: Central aisle with parallel storage bays either side.
EXTERIOR: 4 storey; 14x9-bay range. The sides divided by columns and floor beams into regular units, each with a corrugated iron panel, originally timber-clad, beneath a full-width window of 5 casements (formerly sliding sashes) each of 6 panes; the ground floor has 1946 brick infill under the windows. W front has a central 3-bay gable over ground-floor sliding doors, and the N side a hoist bay to the first-floor of the 9th bay from the front. Blind rear elevation. INTERIOR: has a frame of cast-iron H-section columns and I-section joists, with rivetted wrought-iron longitudinal beams carrying cantilever brackets for 3 intermediate timber joists to each bay. Divided internally into three sections, an open central aisle 3 bays wide and with storage bays each side also 3 bays wide, and divided into 7 bays by cast-iron I-section columns along the central aisle. This is spanned by a heavy rivetted beam one bay from the entrance for hoisting, and three wide travelling platforms at each floor running on rails for transporting boats the length of the building and between floors. In the SE corner of the third floor is an office area divided by glazed panels, and a timber winder stair leads from this floor up into an octagonal cupola above the roof. This has trusses with cruciform struts and wrought-iron tension members. HISTORY: boat stores were built in all the royal yards for the large number of small boats used by the navy. The Sheerness store is remarkable however for its size and efficient storage and handling arrangement, and also for its innovatory structural system. The all-metal frame was made rigid by portal bracing, subsequently adopted by the skyscraper pioneers in Chicago, and universal for modern steel-framed building. Precedents can be found in the slip covers built in the royal dockyards during the 1830s and 40s, notably the fine series at Chatham, culminating in Greene's own No.7 slip cover (qv). The Boat Store, however, was the first structure to depend for its stability entirely on the rigidity of the joints. While a pioneer without immediate followers, it is of international significance in the development of modern architecture. Forms part of a group with the Boat basin and Buildings Nos 84 and 86 (qqv). (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 145-148; Transactions of the Newcomen Society: Skempton AW: The Boat Store Sheerness (1858-60): 1959-60: 57- 78 ; De Mare E: The Functional Tradition: London: 1958 ; Pevsner N: Pioneers of the Modern Movement: London: 1949).Listing NGR: TQ9088875297 (13)

Historic England archive material(14)

In December 2018, historian David Hughes reported on the history and the 'increasingly perilous' contemporary condition of the Boathouse in The Naval Dockyards Society magazine. (15)

<1> DOE(HHR) Swale RD Kent June 1978 33 (OS Card Reference). SKE41198.

<1> Department of the Environment, KCC Greenback Index (Index). SWX9400.

<2> Bldgs of Eng NE and E Kent 1983 458 (J Newman) (OS Card Reference). SKE37821.

<3> Ind Arch SE Eng 1978 54 (AJ Haselfoot) (OS Card Reference). SKE44267.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments in England, 1995, Sheerness: The Dockyard, Defences and Blue Town (Unpublished document). SWX6974.

<5> Eve, D., 1999, A guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Kent, I26 (Monograph). SWX9293.

<6> 1946, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9556.

<7> 1947, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9810.

<8> 1942, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9993.

<9> 1942, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX9997.

<10> 1998, Photograph (Photograph (Print)). SWX10227.

<11> A.W. Skempton, 1959, The Boat Store, Sherrness (1858-60) and its Place in Structural History (Article in serial). SKE17491.

<12> 1858, Sheerness Dockyard 1858 labelled plan (Map). SKE18272.

<13> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.

<14> Historic England, Archive material associated with Sheerness Dockyard (Archive). SKE54389.

<15> The Naval Dockyards Society, 2018, Dockyards, The Sheerness Boathouse, History of Grade 1 listed building (Unpublished document). SKE53063.

Sources and further reading