The North Foreland Public House

Reasons for Designation

Yes list.

Details

1357/0/10020 HIGH STREET 18-FEB-11 325 The North Foreland Public House

II House c1630, now pub, with 1912 neo-Tudor façade, and C18, C19 and C20 phases.

MATERIALS: Snecked stone and render to the front (south), yellow stock brick to the west, and weather-boarding to the rear. The roof is covered in clay tiles, with slate to the two-storey range to the west.

PLAN: The building has three storeys and a basement, which is above ground to the rear. To the front are three small gable-ended roofs running parallel with the High Street, and to the rear, a deeply pitched gable-ended roof set at right angles to the High Street. There is a massive central stack, with a rebuilt chimney above roof level. To the east of the building, broadly parallel with the central stack, is a winder stair, with a stack to the immediate south. Alongside the west side of the building is a two-storey range (the first floor being at High Street level). This was a self-contained building until 1986.

EXTERIOR: The building has an Edwardian neo-Tudor style façade, with stone mullioned windows glazed with square leaded lights and hood moulds on the first floor. The principal door has a carved shield above featuring an abbreviation of the brewery name (Woodhams and Co). The frontage retains much of its original 1912 neo-Tudor detailing, including rainwater goods, and hanging sign bracket. To the rear, the building has irregularly positioned and sized fenestration, which is generally composed of timber sliding sash windows of varying post mid-C18 dates.

INTERIOR: The public bar occupies the building at High Street level, with the wide front room (most likely at one time two rooms), being dominated by the bar counter. Most of the interior fittings of the bar probably date from the early C20 or after, but the room does include an area of C18 panelling to the east. In the room to the rear there is a large fireplace, which feeds into the central stack. It has an elaborate C17 overmantel which features strapwork panels interspaced with carved male and female terms. There are spaces for four terms but one is missing. The winder stair to the east is C18 in detail, with a closed string, turned vase balusters, and a broad handrail.

At first floor to the rear there is a second large fireplace feeding into the central stack. This has another substantial overmantel with a central strapwork panel, and panels to either side with arches and split-turned pendants, the three panels are separated by fluted pilasters. There are further rooms on the second floor, that to the rear being an attic room. The roof timbers to the front half of the building appear to be of late C18 or C19 date, whereas those to the rear are considerably larger in section with no ridge piece. Throughout the building various other structural timbers are in evidence in the ceilings and walls and there are several areas of C18 panelling to the east of the building at ground and first floors.

HISTORY: Street directories show that The North Foreland was trading as a public house by 1858, and an indenture for a house known by the sign of 'North Foreland', indicates that it could have been trading as a public house prior to 1786. The building has undergone a number of phases of alteration, the most significant recent phase, being its re-fronting in 1912 by Woodhams and Co Brewery.

The building stands in a riverside area between the centres of Rochester and Chatham. When Chatham Dockyard was founded in the mid-C16, a short distance to the north, it brought an influx of people to Chatham, and with them a need for housing. Evidence from maps and written sources, as well as from surviving built fabric, suggests that this area was being developed in the late C16 to early C17 with high status dwellings, some associated with prominent naval figures such as Sir John Hawkins (1532-1595), treasurer to the Navy from 1577, and the Pett family, master shipwrights at Deptford and Chatham in the C16 and C17.

The Pett family mansion, though now demolished, is described in early C19 sources as being 'Beyond the victualling office, on the same side of the High-street [sic]' (the naval victualling office stood less than 100m to the west of the North Foreland from c1694-c1840). Evidence of a late C16, early C17, building subsumed into what is now No. 375 High Street, Rochester, is believed to be the remains of the mansion associated with the Sir John Hawkins Hospital, founded in 1592, which stands to the immediate east. A short distance further to the east is No. 4 Hammond Hill, another example of an early C17 dwelling. The history of this area is largely unresearched, however The North Foreland seems to form part of a significant pattern of development in this area which almost certainly had strong links with the development of Chatham Dockyard.

SOURCES: Archive records held at Medway Archives: Proposed new front elevation for The North Foreland, 1912, DE779/A/73, DE779/C/1, DE779/B/56 Indenture between T Hulkes and I Wildash, 1786, Unofficial_Series_Collections/U608_T2 Calendar of Treasury Papers 1556-7 - 1696 (1868) Her Majesty's Public Record Office, 427 Girouard, M, Victorian Pubs, (1984) Map of 1633 showing Rochester to Chatham Dockyard, Duke of Northumberland's collection, held at Alnwick Castle Phippen's Directory of Rochester, (1858) Wildash, W, The History and Antiquities of Rochester and its Environs, (1817) 337, 341-345, 349-354

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The North Foreland Public House, 325 High Street, Rochester, a refronted early to mid C17 house, is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Historic interest: as a former dwelling of the early to mid-C17, the building retains key elements of its original structure and plan form, as well as significant C17 and C18 joinery * Architectural interest: the two overmantels have a high level of architectural and artistic interest, in particular for the quality of craftsmanship in the figurative carving of the terms * Contextual interest: the building is part of a significant pattern of late C16 to early C17 development in this riverside area, which is likely to have had strong links with the development of Chatham Dockyard a short distance to the north * Architectural interest: the 1912 neo-Tudor façade of the building, though stylistically fairly typical for its date, is nevertheless characterfully detailed and unusual in its good level of survival

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

508901

Legacy System:

LBS

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