Description from record TQ 76 NE 112 :
(TQ 7598 6926) SAM No. 235 [MCD Joiners' Shop: scheduled]. (1) Probably dates from the early 1850s. a good example of an industrial building of this period. It has two storeys, is square in plan and is built of yellow brick. The interior is built around a well, now floored over. (2)

A watching brief of pits and trenches dug within the building suggested an earlier date of construction for the building but this has not been confirmed (3).

The following text is from the original listed building designation:
TQ 76 NE CHATHAM EAST ROAD
(Northwest side) Chatham Dockyard
762-1/8/54
Joiner's Shop
GV II*
joiner's shop. 1840-60, E side filled in mid-late C19. English bond brick with stone dressings and a slate, corrugated asbestos and iron hipped roof. PLAN: rectangular plan formerly around an open courtyard, with a W extension. EXTERIOR: 2 storey; 13-window range. Symmetrical E front has 3-bay ends set forward, plat band and cornice and parapet, central C20 sliding doors, rubbed brick segmental-arches to 6/6-pane metal casements with doorways in the second and tenth bays from the left, and a long central first-floor metal window with thin iron mullions. 8-window sides with doorways on the S side one bay in; windows as the front.
A 2-aisle extension to the W with segmental-arched 8/8-pane windows, has gable ends, possibly rebuilt, of those to the $, the outer range with a central doorway with windows each side and a later large round-arched window over the door, the inner range with 3 windows; N gables with similar fenestration, W side has 9-window range including a doorway 3 from the right with a lunette to the left.
INTERIOR: Former courtyard defined by brick walls to three sides with segmental-arched windows, open on E side. Cast-iron posts with joists set in shoes cast onto fish-belly profile ground-floor beams; the inner, former courtyard area, has timber beams to inserted floor. The roof construction to the first floor is clearly of a later phase to the courtyard and east-facing workshop area, with stone flags to fireproof NE corner. Cast-iron H-section columns on first floor, with a slight batter, cast in Rochester, to a wrought-iron roof with cast-iron decorative compression members. The wide stone stair flight from the entrance supported on special cast iron beams, a pair of columns and a bridging beam with parabolic bottom flange. Long first-floor window has cast iron octagonal mullions on the inside.
HISTORY: This is a unique purpose-built workshop, the plan and constructional details of which are directly related to its function in preparing shipbuilding timber. Forms a central part of the complete naval dockyard.
Listing NGR: TQ7599269249 (4)

<1> English Heritage 1:1250 SAM location maplet (OS Card Reference). SKE41612.

<2> English Heritage SAM Record Description (J Coad) (OS Card Reference). SKE41626.

<3> Alan Ward, 2009, An Archaeological Watching Brief at the Old Joinery, Historic Dockyard, Chatham (Unpublished document). SKE15830.

<4> English Heritage, List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest (Map). SKE16160.