Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Grade II* listed building. Main construction periods 1816 to 1899

Summary from record TQ 76 NE 123 :

Dock pump house, built 1822

Monument Types

• PUMPING STATION (PUMPING STATION, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• STEAM ENGINE (STEAM ENGINE, Post Medieval - 1540 AD to 1900 AD)
• SITE (Post Medieval - 1816 AD to 1899 AD)

Full description

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The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TQ 76 NE CHATHAM MAIN GATE ROAD
(East side) Chatham Dockyard
762-1/8/60
Chatham Dock Pumping Station South
GV II*
Dock pumping station, now disused. c1816-23, by John Rennie Snr, late C19 extension. Yellow stock bricks with Portland stone dressings and a slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style.
PLAN: central boiler house with enclosed E chimney and engine houses each side. 2 storeys; 5-window range.
EXTERIOR: symmetrical front with the middle 3 windows set forward, plat band, cornice and blocking course. Round-arched ground-floor windows set in matching recesses with impost bands have 12112-pane sashes, flat-headed first floor metal framed casement windows, with an inserted flat-headed central entrance. Matching rear elevation has a blind central first-floor window beneath a square battered panelled chimney separated by an ashlar band from a short panelled base. A cast-iron pressure vessel stands in front of the S engine house. Late (19 single-storey range to the left front has brick infill below continuous upper glazing and corrugated iron gable and roof.
INTERIOR: central boiler house with late C19 gantry crane; S engine house, with the well at the Wend, retains the beam floor and entablature, consisting of moulded cast-iron beams supported by a pair of round cast-iron columns; a cantilevered stone winder stair to the side of the chimney leads to the beam floor, which has hand cranks at either end of the slot for the engine beam and lifting hooks in the ceiling, with four iron columns at the corners; metal roof has wrought-iron ties and cast-iron tie beams and principals. Fittings included cast-iron panelled doors. HISTORY: built by Rennie to drain his No.1 -now No.3 -dry dock (qv), the first stone dry dock at Chatham. The design is similar to his engine house at Sheerness (demolished) and illustrated in his Treatise on Docks. This is the oldest dock pumping station and, apart from the New River Head pumping station, the earliest surviving purpose-built pumping station in the country. It is also one of the oldest engine houses built for a Boulton and Watt engine. A very early steam pumping station retaining considerable archaeological evidence for its working, and part of a fine assemblage of Georgian naval docks and dockyard buildings.
(Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 180 ; Archaeologia Cantiana: MacDougall P: Granite and Lime, Chatham Dockyard's First Stone Dry Dock: 1989: 173-192 ; Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: plate 17).
Listing NGR: TQ7606869399

Description from record TQ 76 NE 123 :
(TQ 7594 6927) SAM No. 283 [South Pumping Station: scheduled]. (1) Dock Pump House, built 1822 possibly to a design by Edward holl or John Rennie. #4027 was paid for a 50hp Boulton and watt engine and pumps, parts of which are still in place. This is the oldest surviving dock pumping station aprt from Portsmouth. (2)

From the Schedule of Ancient Monuments:
Oldest surviving dock pumping station in a home dockyard. Built c1827. 2 storey, 5 bays, yellow stock brick with Portland stone detailing. Cast iron framed windows. Original machinery replaced but the building is still used for its original purpose. Has similarities to a Rennie designed pumping station at Sheerness.

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

<2> Jonathan G Coad, 1989, The royal dockyards 1690-1850: architecture and engineering works of the sailing navy. No.1, Page Nos. 240, Plate Nos. 191 (Bibliographic reference). SKE6362.

Sources and further reading

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