Located just north of Chatham Church overlooking the dockyard. It was rented by the navy for the use of its senior officers, Pepys included, when visiting the dockyard. Hill House remained in use as the pay office for the dockyard and is included in Dummer’s great survey of the late 17th century.
7 Annotations
First Reading
Terry F. • Link
"A large house used for official business and for the accommodation of offical visitors." (L&M, iii.153.n.4.)
in Aqua Scripto • Link
it be in Rochester?
Terry Foreman • Link
This Hill-house is at Chatham, said to be haunted; included the navy Treasurer's chamber; overlooked the Chatham yard.
Ben L • Link
Hill House was located on the corner of Dock Lane (now Dock Road) and Red Cat Lane, just North of Chatham Church, and overlooking the Old (Henry VIII's) Dockyard. By the time Pepys was writing the Dockyard had moved north to its present location and the old yard had become Gun Wharf.
Hill House was an existing property rented by the navy for the use of its senior officers (Pepys included) when visiting the dockyard. When the "new" dockyard was built at the present site Hill House remained in use as the pay office for the dockyard and it is included in Dumner's great survey of the late 17th century.
It remained until the late 1770s when the Navy Board acquired the adjoining field (Hill House Field) and demolished it to build the RM Barracks.
The site is currently occupied by Medway Council Offices.
Second Reading
Terry Foreman • Link
Perhaps the Hill-house at Chatham was said to be haunted (as are some Victorian houses today) because it was [a wood-frame house] of Elizabethan vintage. (L&M note) https://www.google.com/search?q=e…:
Terry Foreman • Link
CHATHAM—THE HILL HOUSE (1567-1805)
By FREDERICK CULL, F.R.I.C.S.
http://www.kentarchaeology.org.uk…
San Diego Sarah • Link
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/…
'Charles II: August 1668', in Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Charles II, 1667-8, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1893), pp. 516-565. British History Online
Aug. 2. 1668
St. James's Palace.
M. Wren to Sam. Pepys.
Asks the nature and profits of the place of housekeeper at the Hill House, Chatham;
the last that had it being dead, several people apply for it;
shall not else know how to inform his Royal Highness which way to bestow it.
[S.P. Dom., Car. II. 244, No. 63.]
Everything was a profit center for the King ... or in this case, James, Duke of York ... to bestow.