Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade I listed building. Main construction periods 1793 to 1899

Summary from record TQ 76 NE 119 :

Rigging house and storehouse, built 1780's

Monument Types

• ROPERY (Rope Works, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• STOREHOUSE (STOREHOUSE, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• STOREHOUSE (STOREHOUSE, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• SITE (Post Medieval - 1793 AD to 1899 AD)

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TQ 7568 NE CHATHAM ANCHOR WHARF
(East side) Chatham Dockyard
762-1/1/34
Former Storehouse No.2
and Former Rigging Store
GV I
Warehouse and rigging store. 1793-96. Brick with stone dressings and a slate hipped roof.
PLAN: rectangular single-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and basement, with attics in 3 sections; 3:13:5:13:3- window range. A symmetrical block has taller end and central sections, with ground-floor plat band, cornice and overhanging eaves, the middle block has the central 3-window section set forward.
3-storey sections have middle 3-bays set forward and hoist bays to middle of outer 5-bay sections with double doors and braced iron pivot hoists to the side of the top doors. Rubbed brick flat arches to 8/8-pane sashes and 4/8-pane second-floor sashes. End returns have single round-arched hoist bays with double doors and top 5-light lunette. A C20 bridge connects with the N end of Storehouse No.3 (qv) to the first and second floor hoist bays, replacing an original bridge. At the south end of the east elevation is a mid C19 extension, linked to the west wall of the ropery (qv), with gauged red brick semicircular arches providing access to throughway and internal late C19 iron trusses.
INTERIOR: divided into a series of 3-bay timber frames, of very heavy scantling. Some tin-lined ceilings and solid double cast-iron panelled doors between firebreak walls. The internal posts set close together down the axis, with a railed route for wagons between.
HISTORY: the N half was a Fitted Rigging House, and the S half for storage. Part of the longest warehouse range in Britain, and with Storehouse No.3 and surviving examples at Portsmouth naval dockyard it is certainly one of the most significant examples of industrial warehousing in Europe: they predate the large early C19 warehouse stacks of the London docks. There were formally pediments to the centre of the lower sections.
Built during the extensive late C18 rebuilding of the dockyard, and with the N warehouse and Ropery (qqv), part of a fine group of Georgian naval dockyard btJildings. The use of tin represents an early attempt at fireproofing in industrial buildings.
(Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 160 ; MacDougall P: The Chatham Dockyard Story: Rainham: 1987: 91 ; The Buildings of England: Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London: 1976: 205; Dockland an illustrated historical survey of life and work: Tucker M: Warehouses in Docklands: London: 1986: 21-31).
Listing NGR: TQ7578268963

Description from record TQ 76 NE 119 :
(TQ 7577 6895) SAM No. 242 [Rigging House No.1 and storehouse No. 2: scheduled]. (1) A very large storehouse on Anchor Wharf of four storeys. Brick built, 37 bays long with cellsr. Internally very altered. One of the last buildings still to have wall cranes in situ. Built 1796, re-roofed 1928. (2) The present building replaces a cordage and yarn store built in 1718 and demoilshed in the 1780's. (3)

Coad, J., 1982, Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850 (Article in serial). SWX7760.

<1> English Heritage 1:1250 SAM location maplet (OS Card Reference). SKE41612.

<2> English Heritage SAM Record Description (J Coad) (OS Card Reference). SKE41626.

<3> Jonathan G Coad, 1989, The royal dockyards 1690-1850: architecture and engineering works of the sailing navy. No.1 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6362.

Sources and further reading

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