TQ 9175 SW MAIN ROAD Sheerness Dockyard 933/2/97 Dockyard Cottage and 15.03.1977 attached garden wall and basement railings GV II Officer's house, now offices. c1826, probably by George Ledwell Taylor, architect for the Navy Board, and Sir John Rennie, engineer. Yellow stock brick with rubbed brick heads and limestone dressings, 2 brick lateral stacks each end, and slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style. Double-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attic and basement; 3-window range. Symmetrical front with first-floor rendered plat band, eaves cornice and blocking course, steps across the basement area to a round-arched doorway in matching recess with a fanlight with round central pane and 6-panel door with raised panels, and flat-headed windows with 6/6-pane sashes; segmental-arched basement lights. The ends have a raised section between the stacks containing a narrow 4-light attic light. I NTERIOR contains a central hall with a segmental arch to a rear transverse dogleg stair with iron stick balusters and curtail with fluted newel, 6-panel doors, enriched cornices and marble fire surrounds with corner roundels. Ground-floor rooms connected by shallow arches. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached brick wall extends approx 40m to the former rear stables ( qv), to enclose the garden to the SW; cast-iron basement area and entrance step railings with urn finials. HISTORY: originally the Boatswain's house at Sheerness Naval Dockyard. Unlike the other royal dockyards, Sheerness was all built at the same time. Within the little-altered SE corner of Rennie's model layout, containing offices, the chapel and the officers' accommodation, part of a unique planned early C19 dockyard. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989; Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851: 41 ; Sheerness, The Dockyard, Defences and Blue Town: 1995: 1). Listing NGR: TQ9133875226