TQ 7568 NE CHATHAM COTTAGE ROAD (East side) Chatham Dockyard 762-1/1/47 Former Lead and Paint Mill GV I Lead and paint mill, now museum. 1817-19, by Edward Holl, architect for the Navy Board; extended mid C19. Fireproof construction of brick with stone dressings and slate hipped roof, with cast-iron posts, joists and flagstone floors, and iron roof. PLAN: rectangular plan with N offices, central paint mill, and leadmill containing engine house in the single-storey S range, and S extension. EXTERIOR: 1 and 2 storeys and basement; 11:10-window range. A long range, with basement windows to the W, ground-floor plat band and dentil brick cornice and parapet, with a round-arched central doorway in the E side with a radial fanlight and double doors; rubbed brick flat arches to metal 24-pane windows, the upper ones top-hung casements, and 16-pane basement windows. 3-window N end has blind outer windows and tall first floor double hoist doors beneath 30-pane casements. 10-window range single-storey S range, with ground-floor as the N section and sunken panels to the parapet above. To the S end a 2-storey, 4-window mid C19 range with tall central segmental-arched double doors, 12-light windows either side, with first-floor unhorned 6/6-pane sashes, and 2 small intermediate lateral stacks, the end has a central porch with blind upper windows each side. INTERIOR: cast-iron panelled doors, fireproof frame of columns with flanged capitals to T -section beams with bowed webs, and sockets cast in the side for fish belly joists carrying flagstone floors. An entrance cross passage with stone dogleg stair, offices to the N; the paint shop has evidence of the 9 grinding mills and line shafting. The upper floor at the N end has tall iron canvas stretching frames for painting suspended from threaded rods; trusses with wrought-iron queen and prince rods and cast-iron diagonal struts and ties. HISTORY: an integrated works, originally the S building had a steam powered lead-rolling mill and casting area with a beam engine and boiler in the W side; the N building contained paint mills connected by line shafting to the engine. Holl's works had sufficient capacity to supply all the naval yards with paint and rolled lead. It has considerable significance as an early and almost entirely complete example of a specialist manufacturing building of the early C19. An important early use of fireproof construction outside the textile industry, following Holl's system for the rebuilt ropery at Devonport (qv). Part of a fine group of Georgian dockyard buildings. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of Chatham Dockyard 1700-1850: London: 1982: 179 ; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 240-1 ; MacDougall P: The Chatham Dockyard Story: Rainham: 1987: 117). Listing NGR: TQ7573468425