Registered Park or Garden: THE OFFICERS' TERRACE, HISTORIC DOCKYARD, CHATHAM (1000376)

From The National Heritage List for England: A set of twelve town gardens, well-documented and retaining evidence of their original early C18 layout. GARDENS AND PLEASURE GROUNDS Below the main north-west facade of the houses are the small front gardens, marked by the remains of the iron railings cast in 1789 by Thomas Penn of Rochester, which replaced the original palings. To the south-east, behind the row of houses and separated from them by stone-paved courtyards and the narrow carriage road, is a high retaining wall which supports the set of twelve long, narrow back gardens. The gardens, subdivided one from the next by internal brick walls, are of uniform length, but vary in breadth, measuring on average 36m x 12m. They were lengthened in the late C18 at which time gates were added into the new back walls giving access onto the road beyond. Access to each of the gardens is via a door in the north-west wall. This opens onto a set of centrally placed stairs, except in the two largest gardens (nos 6 and 7 as shown on the 1755 estate map) where the position of the stairs has been altered in the early C19. Originally the stairs were covered over by arched wooden roofs with partially glazed sides, which extended into the gardens as small greenhouses or garden rooms. Two of these structures survive (nos 1 and 12). The stairs lead to the lowest of the garden terraces which step up the gently sloping plots to the brick wall at their south-east ends. Particularly in garden nos 1, 2, 11, and 12 much of the original brick terracing, the Portland stone steps, and the pattern of centre and side paths, survive, correlating well with a detailed model of the dockyards made in 1774 and now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. Archaeological investigations carried out in 1990 showed that there is also a high rate of survival of buried features, later developments having tended to protect rather than destroy the original design.