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Sheerness Dockyard Church has been rescued from dereliction and repurposed as a community café, event space and youth employment hub. This thoughtful transformation, working with conservation specialists Martin Ashley Architects, preserves a major local landmark while boosting prospects for the Isle of Sheppey’s population.
For almost 200 years the Grade 2* listed church, designed by George Leadwell Taylor, stood as a marker of civic and naval pride in the Royal Naval Dockyard at Sheerness. But it had been left to decay after a fire swept through it in 2001, completely destroying the roof. Historic England declared it one of the most significant buildings on their at risk register, and the Heritage Lottery Fund offered match funding for its restoration.
We were brought on board in 2017 to breathe new life into this elegant Georgian building. The clocktower was too precarious to be repaired in situ, so was fastidiously dismantled and re-built . As elsewhere, where the exterior stone cladding or brickwork had been too badly damaged, it was replaced, with surviving parts being left to produce a contrasting patina between old and new.
We completely replaced the roof with a new structure, which follows the profile of the original, albeit perforated by four circular skylights. This sits, supported by steel trusses and timber flitch beams, on top of original, fluted, cast iron columns. Interior walls had lost almost all their original adornment but we kept what was there, washing any exposed brickwork with a simple lime wash.
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Existing fragments of decorative plaster have been stabilised and retained as vestiges of the building’s history
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We retained the church’s strong axial plan with the altar alcove at the end, but opened the ground floor up to full ceiling height, using glazed walls and a robust, engineered aesthetic to create new ground floor spaces – a café, and two meeting rooms. These new rooms are tucked under the first floor gallery, arranged in the footprint of the original tiered seating galleries, connected by lightweight steel link bridges. Here the incubator hub offers a full service office space for mentoring and flexible working.
Keeping the central aisle as free circulation space allows for events and exhibitions, as required, serviced by the café. A new floor of polished concrete, with underfloor heating, features a central aisle of re-laid original stone tiles. What with a fully rebuilt cantilever stone stair staircase connecting the two floors, the bones and history of the original building still read clearly. Our aim throughout was to preserve the beautiful proportions of the original while creating a light-filled, 21st century multi-purpose space of great character.
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In 2025 Sheerness Dockyard Church won the prestigious RIBA Reinvention Award for the best adaptation of an existing building in the UK. The jury said:
"This is a powerful example of heritage-led regeneration, a project that reinvigorates history while equipping a community with space and purpose.”
