Medway Heritage Centre

Details

CHATHAM

TQ7568SE DOCK ROAD 762-1/2/1 (West side) 29/10/52 Medway Heritage Centre (Formerly Listed as: DOCK ROAD (West side) Church of St Mary the Virgin)

GV II

Church, now visitor centre. 1884-87 chancel, tower 1897, nave 1901-03, by Sir AW Blomfield, incorporating earlier parts. Snecked rock-faced ragstone and limestone dressings, with tiled roof. STYLE: Early English Gothic Revival. PLAN: chancel with N and S chapels, aisled nave, and separate SW tower. EXTERIOR: E gable has angle buttresses and 3 stepped lancets, string course and small oval light in the top; 2-bay sides have Y-tracery. Taller nave gable; 5-bay nave has paired clerestory lancets, the aisles have 2-light windows. W gable has coped raking aisle roofs with round-arched Norman style doorways with splayed reveals and zig-zag mouldings, and double doors with strap hinges; a curved 5-light single-storey apse with narrow lights, sill band and half conical roof; beneath the nave gable set back above weathered bands, a 2-light central window with a cinquefoil and flanking single lights. 3-stage tower has diagonal buttresses, weathered plinth, string courses and crenellated parapet with corner pinnacles; S 2-centre arched doorway with double doors beneath a sunken panel with label mould and narrow flat-headed light, a clock in a sunken panel, and a 4-centre arched belfry louvred light with Perpendicular tracery. S chancel chapel has a coped gable with angle buttresses and a stepped 3-light lancet. INTERIOR: not inspected but noted as having matching 3-bay sedilia and 2-bay piscina with black marble columns and continuous hoodmould, and chancel screen with cusped ogee arches, cresting and cross and a low wall and gate. 3 Norman round arches to the W end, lower to the outer aisle arches, with decayed zig-zag mouldings. Nave has round piers with octagonal caps to chamfered arches with hoodmoulds, and a roof with arch-braced collar trusses and arch-braced purlins. FITTINGS: C19 stone pulpit with marble columns on moulded base and top. C19 octagonal font with cinquefoil panels and a

timber spirelet cover. Triptych by Clayton and Bell, cinquefoil panels with a canopy and picture of the Madonna, organ 1795 by Samuel Green. STAINED GLASS: E window 1891 by Kempe. MEMORIALS: various wall memorials, including a C16 pair of kneeling figures. (The Buildings of England: Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London: 1976-: 200).

Listing NGR: TQ7574368421

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

462087

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1969), 200
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1976)

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.