Use of the river Medway for a royal dockyard started c. 1550 at the riverside below the church. In the 17th century a new Stuart dockyard was built slightly downstream where the historic dockyard now stands. The earlier dockyard remained in use, however, and became the Gunwharf, a facility for the storage of armaments, mostly for ships and the army. In 1633 the area was known as the 'Old Dock' and a map of this date shows a pair of large storehouses and numerous smaller buildings. Over the next hundred years a number of buildings were constructed, the most significant being The Command House (TQ 76 NE 1176) and its stable and carriage house, the Armoury, Carpenters Shop and Machine Shop (TQ 76 NE 1211) and the Gun Wharf wall and gates. By the 20th century the site was no longer needed for storage of armaments and the site was progressively sold off in the late 1950s. (1,2)

Description from record TQ 76 NE 71:
[TQ 7569 6826 sited from map in source] For 300 years the area of land below Chatham's old parish church on the river bank had been used as a place of manufacture, repair and storage for Naval and Army Ordnance. The main building on the Gun Wharf was a long storehouse built in the 1660s, which was replaced by a new structure in 1706, rebuilt in 1717 as a 3-storey building known as the Grand Storehouse. After World War I the Gun Wharf began to decline away from heavy artillery towards small arms and storing of equipment for reserve units. The end of World War II brought more decline and in 1959 the armaments depot was sold off. The site was later used as the base for a maritime museum before being sold to Lloyds in 1975 as a site for their new headquarters. The only building now surviving is the Naval Ordnance Officer's House, a listed building, now called the `Command House', a public house. A fine row of cannon recovered by Lloyds has been mounted on carriages overlooking the water front. (1-3).

The Riverside Rooms were 20th century buildings on Gun Wharf, demolished in 2010. They were surveyed prior to demolition. (4)

<1> English Heritage, 2004, Alternative action report for a site where scheduling is not recommended: New Gun Wharf (Scheduling record). SKE15800.

<1> Peter Kendall, 2005, Defending the Dockyard: the story of the Chatham Lines (Unpublished document). SKE15928.

<2> Kent Arch Rev 75 1984 101-104 Map (KR Gulvin) (OS Card Reference). SKE45822.

<2> Oxford Archaeology, 2004, The Gun Wharf, Chatham, Kent: Archaeological Desk-based Study (Unpublished document). SKE15823.

<3> Oxford Archaeology, 2004, The Gun Wharf, Chatham, Kent: Archaeological Desk-based Study (Unpublished document). SKE15823.

<4> Wessex Archaeology, 2010, The White House and Riverside Rooms, Chatham Dynamic Bus Station, Chatham, Kent: Historic Building Record (Unpublished document). SKE18261.