ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23

ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23, MAIN ROAD

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1258986
Date first listed:: 01-Aug-1968
List Entry Name:: ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23
Statutory Address:: ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23, MAIN ROAD

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Date:: 2001-06-04
Reference:: IOE01/04287/09
Rights:: © Mr Ian Surita. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II*
List Entry Number:: 1258986
Date first listed:: 01-Aug-1968
Date of most recent amendment:: 13-Aug-1999
List Entry Name:: ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23
Statutory Address 1:: ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23, MAIN ROAD

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: ARCHWAY HOUSE BUILDING NUMBER 23, MAIN ROAD

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Kent
District:: Swale (District Authority)
Parish:: Sheerness
National Grid Reference:: TQ 91062 75137

Details

TQ 9175 SW MAIN ROAD (South side), Sheerness Dockyard 933/2/107 Archway House, 01.08.1968 Building number 23

GV II*

Sawyers' and carpenters' shop and stores, now offices. 1824-30, probably by Edward Holl, architect to the Navy Board, and carried out by William Miller, architect, and Sir John Rennie Jnr and George Rennie, engineers. Yellow stock brick with granite dressings, cast-iron internal frame and slate hipped mansard roof. PLAN: 5 single-depth sections, 3 for ground-floor saw pits alternating with timber seasoning stores, separated by stair wells. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic; five 5-window sections separated by 1- window stair bays. Each section separated by a recessed stair bay and raised fire-break walls, with rusticated granite to the piers of a full-length round-arched arcade with rubbed brick heads, plant band, thin cornice and parapet. Late C19 or mid C20 glazing to the formerly open arcade, with round-arched doorways set in matching recesses to the stair bays, and rubbed brick heads to first-floor 8/8-pane sashes; flat-headed dormers with 6/6-pane sashes, some iron, to each bay. 3-window returns with small round-arched ground-floor windows in larger arched recesses, and a large central round-arched hoist bay to the first floor. Blocks 2, 3 and 4 had larger loading doors to the central first-floor bay. INTERIOR: contains an internal cast-iron frame of posts to the heads of which slot T-section beams with arched webs and sockets in the sides for fish belly joists bearing flagstone floors; the timber seasoning bays Nos 2 and 4 have sockets at 3 levels cast into the columns for carrying seasoning racks. First floor similar, though that at the N end, the mould loft, is without columns. Attic with cast-iron roof, blocks 2 and 5 with canted tie beams with pierced webs and axial arched beams between iron posts, the other bays with queen rods to I-section ties and rafters. Original cantilevered stone open-well stairs with iron stick balusters on the W side; cast-iron harr-hung 6-panel doors, one survives in the S end. HISTORY: the fire-proof frame is related to similar structures in Holl's lead works at Chatham and ropery at Devonport (qqv), and also to Rennie's work at the Royal William Yard, Devonport, and part of a rigorous attempt to reduce the fire hazard. Contained 15 saw pits in blocks 1,3 and 5, seasoning stores, with mould loft, stores and carpenters's shop on the upper floor, and attic stores. The hand saw pits were among the last built for the Navy before the changeover to metal ships, and were replaced by the steam saw mill (qv) from 1856, with which this forms an interesting comparison as an iron-framed building for sawing. Of considerable interest as a fire-proof integrated timber workshop within the elder Rennie's plan for the completely rebuilt yard. Forms a central part of a unique planned early C19 dockyard. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 149-150; Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: 41; Sheerness, the Dockyard, Defences and Blue Town: 1995: NBR BI NO 93279).

Listing NGR: TQ9106275137

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 445989
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989), 149-150
RCHME, , Sheerness: The Dockyard Defences and Blue Town, (March 1995)
Rennie, J, The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours, (1851), 41

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.