Listed Building record TQ 76 NE 1098 - CHATHAM HOUSE (NUMBER 14) AND ATTACHED FRONT AREA AND STEP RAILINGS

The following text is from the original listed building designation:

CHATHAM
TQ7567NE NEW ROAD 762-1/4/20 (South West side) 29/10/52 Nos.12-38 (Even) Chatham House (No.14) and attached front area and step railings (Formerly Listed as: NEW ROAD (South West side) Nos.2-38)
GV II
Formerly known as: Gibraltar Place. Terrace of 14 houses, now offices. 1794. Brick with stone dressings, some weatherboarded rear elevations, brick ridge and party wall stacks, and hipped slate and tile roofs. PLAN: double-depth. EXTERIOR: each of 3 storeys and basement; 3-window range, except No.14 (Chatham House), a 4-window range, and Nos 12 and 16, both a 2-window range. The raised ground-floor over a rendered basement has round-arched openings connected by a channelled impost band, with a thin cornice and parapet. No.14 is set forward, with flights of steps up each side to the central porch with columns, entablature blocks and a broken pediment, to a doorway with architrave, panelled radial fanlight and 6-panel door. Wider flanking tripartite windows, with segmental-arches on the ground-floor with radial fanlights, and flat-headed above and to the basement; middle and right-hand narrower 6/6-pane sashes. A large early C20 square lantern is raised behind the parapet, with 7 windows front and back, and a square lantern on top. Right-hand round-arched doorway with C20 French windows, and a C20 central door to the stairs. Flanking 2-window houses have inner round-arched doorways and outer ground-floor segmental-arched tripartite windows, with first-floor 6/6 and second-floor 3/6-pane sashes. The remaining houses to the left are similar, with round-arched ground-floor openings, and steps up to right-hand doorways with fanlights and 6-panel doors. Nos 24 and 26 have a pedimented parapet with an oval panel; No.32 without steps and door, part of No 30; Nos 32 and 34 have mid C19 2-light ground-floor bays. Nos 22-30 have weatherboarded rear elevations and slate hipped roofs. INTERIOR: No.14 has Ionic columns across the basement, and an elaborate early C20 central rear early C18-style stair with fluted newels, column-on-vase balusters and a ramped moulded
rail. The others are mostly fitted with a dogleg stair rising from an entrance hall, with stick balusters and column newels, dado, cornice and rising sashes. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached front area and entrance step iron railings, with various foliate or urn finials and decorative cast-iron balusters. HISTORY: probably not all built at the same time, and the different roofs and rear elevation suggest an attempt to unify an earlier and less uniform row. Extended Nos 2-10 (qqv) in c1812, this is Chatham town's most advanced terrace despite the anachronistic use of weatherboarded timber-frame rear elevations.
Listing NGR: TQ7570667665

English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.