The Isle of Sheppey can be a strange place and Sheerness is
a bit of a backwater – you don’t pass through Sheerness as it’s in a corner so
you have to have a good reason to go there. I know it from childhood visits to
the seaside and have occasionally returned to see what’s happened (not much).
There are a few architecturally interesting buildings in the
town which date from when it had a Royal Naval Dockyard (closed in 1960). The
best building probably being the Dockyard Church, 1828 rebuilt 1884 and listed
Grade 11*, now in a very poor state after being gutted by fire and left for
years but hopefully restoration is in sight.
By the dockyard walls lies Bluetown, once a lively place ‘servicing’
the dockyard workers needs but now run down with a few listed buildings,
certainly not improved much on when I was last there, but has some potential if
funding was available.
In Sheerness there is an intriguing structure, the massive
base of Sheerness Water Tower, built 1840/50, the waterworks is long gone but
this brick structure remains and various suggestions have been made for its
reuse but nothing has happened – strangely it was delisted as Grade 11 by the
DoE in 1988 (don’t know why?).
© M.C.Sleigh 2013
