Building record TQ 97 SW 1210 - Former guard house, hospital and barracks at Fort Townshend, Sheerness

A building near Sheerness Lines variously identified as a Guard House (shown on a plan of ‘Fort Townshend’ dating from 1796), a military hospital, and subsequently shown as a barracks (‘married quarters’), before conversion to a stores and workshops. Historic mapping indicates that the building survived in this form until at least 1938, but by 1940 aerial imagery of the site indicates that the Guard House has been demolished and replaced in the same location by an engine shed of similar dimensions in plan.

The remains of the foundations of the Guard House building were exposed and found to consist of hand-made brick with off-white lime mortar. (1)

Later adapted as a hospital, stores and workshops, the building survived as substantial brick foundations built on an extensive timber raft designed to float on the soft alluvial ground. Excavation later in 2018 exposed external and internal load-bearing walls, chimney bases, fireplaces, floor-support walls, drains and a possible lavatory bay. The building matched historic plans closely and appears to represent a largely single-phase construction. Evidence suggests recycled bricks and reused shipyard or maritime timbers were incorporated into its foundations. Elsewhere, archaeological remains were sparse. The former defensive moat of the Sheerness Lines had been heavily disturbed by twentieth-century steelworks activity and later infilling, preventing identification of its original construction. Five sandstone masonry blocks, probably derived from demolished fortifications or associated military structures, were recovered from moat backfill. Potential remains of a nineteenth-century military cemetery survive beneath deep made ground, while the former Ordnance Well House appears to have been destroyed by steelworks development.(2)

<1> RSK, 2018, INTERIM ARCHAEOLOGICAL REPORT: SHEERNESS LINES ‘GUARD HOUSE’: FORMER SHEERNESS STEELWORKS, ISLE OF SHEPPEY (Unpublished document). SKE51864.

<2> RSK Environment Ltd, 2018, Former Thamesteel Site, Sheerness, Archaeological investigation report (Unpublished document). SKE53133.