Reasons for Designation
No. 35 High Street is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Of special architectural interest as an early C18 house retaining significant elements of its fabric and plan form and a number of original internal features. The remnants of the earlier house to the east, which are embedded in the flank wall of No 35 and appear to have influenced its plan, also add interest;
* The house illustrates of Chatham's development in the C17-C18 after the establishment of the Royal Dockyard, and is an important survival from its historic streetscape, now only fragmentary.
Details
762-1/0/10011 HIGH STREET
28-FEB-08 35
II
House. Early C18, modern ground floor shop and rear extension. Brick coated in pebbledash, over which is roughcast render marked out with with quoins. Modern concrete roof tiles.
PLAN: The curious roof plan (L-shaped with the front part parallel to the street and cat-slide to rear), the thickness of the west flank wall, which increases at the rear making the rear rooms narrower than the front, and the odd shape of the rooms, arise from the house being built onto the side of an earlier building, No. 33 High Street now demolished, the east wall of which is embedded in the west flank wall of No. 35. The angled intrusions on the inner wall of each room, around which panelling and cornices (where extant) continue, indicate that they were built around an existing projection on the east wall of the earlier building, probably a chimneystack.
The house is 3 storeys over a basement, and comprises a front and rear room with the stair compartment against the east party wall between the front and back rooms. This survives at basement, first and second floors but is much altered at ground floor level. A landing lobby alongside the stair separates the front and rear rooms at first and second floor levels. This may be a hybrid, or transitional, plan: the stair position being a common feature of C17 domestic town-house plans, which survived longer outside London, but here, instead of the chimney breast being located centrally alongside the stair, it is placed on the flank wall, the conventional position for the C18. This arrangement may however have been dictated by pragmatism rather than emerging fashion, arising from the narrowing of the house's width at this point. The stair from ground to first floor has been removed, and replaced by a straight flight against the party wall.
EXTERIOR: Façade of two bays with segmental arched windows. Deep moulded timber eaves cornice. Lead rainwater hopper-head. Modern gabled dormer to rear roof slope. The modern shop front and entrance door are not of special interest.
INTERIOR: Ground floor shop interior has no visible features of interest. Winding stair from basement to ground, and from first to second floors, has closed string, turned balusters and newel posts and heavy moulded handrail. First floor front room has full-height timber wall panelling with small moulded timber cornice (dado rail missing), section to north-east corner missing due to insertion of later stair. Fire surround and grate removed. Cupboard to left of fireplace. Landing lobby between two rooms has panelled cupboard to left (west) mirroring stair compartment to right, side wall to rear room is missing. Triple-light fanlight over door between landing and rear room. Other surviving features include 2-panelled doors and some panelling to inner stair compartment. The essential plan form survives at second floor, although a partition has been inserted into the front room. Basement rear room and stair compartment have C18 panelling, unusually (for a basement room) with mouldings which may be later alterations, the cupboard and door architraves look C19. Chimney breast on east wall with cupboards to either side. Chimneybreast removed above this level.
The single-storey rear extension is not of special interest.
HISTORY: The house stylistically dates from the early C18, and is illustrative of Chatham's historic development in the C17-C18, after the establishment of the Royal Dockyard in the C16 near the ancient settlement to the north-east of the present town centre. The town grew south-westwards towards Rochester, around the old London to Canterbury Road (Watling Street) of which Rochester and Chatham High Streets form part.
REASON FOR DESIGNATION:
No. 35 High Street is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Of special architectural interest as an early C18 house retaining significant elements of its fabric, plan form (which itself is of some interest), and a number of original internal features. The remnants of the earlier house to the east, which are embedded in the flank wall of No 35 and appear to have influenced its plan, also add interest.
* The house illustrates Chatham's development in the C17-C18 after the establishment of the Royal Dockyard, and is an important survival from the town's historic streetscape, now only fragmentary along this stretch.
