Former Hemp House, Spinning Room and Offices

FORMER HEMP HOUSE, SPINNING ROOM AND OFFICES, COTTAGE ROAD

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1378608
Date first listed:
13-Aug-1999
List Entry Name:
Former Hemp House, Spinning Room and Offices
Statutory Address:
FORMER HEMP HOUSE, SPINNING ROOM AND OFFICES, COTTAGE ROAD
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Date:
2004-07-19
Reference:
IOE01/11801/27
Rights:
© Mr M.K Lofthouse. Source: Historic England Archive

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II*
List Entry Number:
1378608
Date first listed:
13-Aug-1999
List Entry Name:
Former Hemp House, Spinning Room and Offices
Statutory Address 1:
FORMER HEMP HOUSE, SPINNING ROOM AND OFFICES, COTTAGE ROAD

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

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

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

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

Location

Statutory Address:
FORMER HEMP HOUSE, SPINNING ROOM AND OFFICES, COTTAGE ROAD

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

District:
Medway (Unitary Authority)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
TQ 75839 68955

Details

TQ 7568 NE CHATHAM COTTAGE ROAD
(West side) Chatham Dockyard
762-1/1/46
Former Hemp House, Spinning
Room and Offices

GV II*


Hemp store, spinning house, and offices. 1729 single-storey hemp house, doubled in width 1743-47, extended to S and first floor added 1812, mid C19 engine house. Brick with slate hipped roof.
PLAN: rectangular single-depth plan, with N attached engine house and office. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and cellar; 21:2:1-bay range. Long hemp house has overhanging eaves, divided into three first-floor 3:1:3-window sections with the middle ones flanked by shallow buttresses and containing wide round-arched ground-floor doorways and altered C20 first-floor windows; single ground-floor windows, altered, segmental-arched first-floor 12/12-pane casements. N engine house is patterned brick with a 4-bay end with blank outer bays, 2-storey flat-headed recesses containing round-arched 24/24-pane casements.
Early C19 lower, narrower 5-bay office against the N end comprises a 4-window range with overhanging eaves, has a central timber porch, and rubbed brick heads to 6/6-pane sashes.
INTERIOR: has a fire-proof cellar, match boarded ground-floor store with posts and masonry walls with round arches supporting the upper floor, timber queen and prince post roof trusses with attached belt drive for the spinning plant. The former engine house has tall cast-iron columns to the beam floor.
HISTORY: the 1729 Hemp house was the only part of the old dockyard to survive the late C18 rebuilding of the ropeyard in the S end of the dockyard, and was used for storing raw hemp before ft was taken to the hatchelling house for combing. When mechanised spinning was added mid C19 it was put into the upper floor, and the beam engine in an extension on the N end.
Part of the most complete ropery (see Anchor Wharf) and one of the largest integrated groups of C18 industrial buildings in the country; also part of a fine and complete group of Georgian dockyard buildings.
(Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 162 ; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 207 -8 ; The Buildings of England: Newman J: West Kent and the Weald: London: 1976: 205).


Listing NGR: TQ7583668956

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:
476561
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Newman, J, The Buildings of England: West Kent and the Weald, (1969), 205
Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989), 207-208
Coad, J, Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850, (1982), 162

Legal

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

Ordnance survey map of Former Hemp House, Spinning Room and Offices

Map

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© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. Use of this mapping is subject to Terms and Conditions.

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.

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