Details
SX 4454 NE PLYMOUTH NORTH YARD, Devonport
Dockyard
740-1/91/199
The Quadrangle (N 173-177,
186-191,203)
GV I
Foundry, smithery, boiler and machine shop, offices and store. 1852-61, by William Scamp and Col. G T Greene of the Admiralty Works Department, external elevations by Sir Charles Barry. Limestone ashlar with yellow brick and granite dressings, and a corrugated sheet roof on cast-iron stanchions. Italianate style.
PLAN: symmetrical square plan originally of 2 courtyards, with central offices along the W front flanked by stores, side ranges set back with re-entrant corners, containing metal-working shops in S range and boiler and plater's shops in the N, and central rear (E) former foundry, millwright's and pattern shops with 2 large chimneys to E corners, beam engine houses to NE and SE corners, and coal stores (converted to offices later C19), along rear.
EXTERIOR: 2-storey; 29-bay front and 18-bay sides. Strongly-articulated elevations with a plinth, cornice and blocking course. W front has 3:3:3-bay central entrance section, the middle set forward with a large round-arched entrance beneath a Diocletian window, and tall, pedimented attic with a panel of recessed roundels, flanking 3-storey bays with attic with 2-roundel panels, and flanking square turrets with flat-topped belfries with round-arched openings and balustrade, connected by a balustrade to the pediment; flanking 3-bay sections have narrow recessed central bays for hoisting which rise up into a segmental pediment, outer recessed bays with ovolo-moulded tops, and round-arched ground-floor and segmental- arched first-floor openings. Outer sections are 5:1:5-bays each with a pedimented central entrance bay, containing segmental-arched cross windows set in ovolo-headed recesses. End gables are simpler versions of the entrance, 2 storeys without the sunken panels or balustrade, with corner turrets with loops, and belfries with pedimented sides and small domes.
N and S ranges have matching end gables with square tops to the turrets, the S with VR 1853 and the N with VR 1856 in the spandrels of the main entrance arch, and connected to the main block by a wide round archway. Side elevations similarly articulated. Originally with ovolo-moulded windows with small-paned metal frames, some altered or blocked in.
Former engine and boiler house in the NE corner a 5-bay range with small ground-floor windows, and first-floor windows set in recesses with bracketed heads, a bracketed cornice and attic storey with sunken panels with paired oculi; E end has panel with 4 oculi. To the inner side
is a truncated octagonal brick chimney. Matching SE engine house. Rear E elevation has 7 -window outer ranges with pedimented end gables, plinth, plat band and eaves cornice, connected by a single-storey central range to the back of the foundry, with round archways leading to the foundry yard at each end and a blocking course. Behind this is the tall yellow brick foundry with a central pedimented wing with 2 round-arched openings with double doors, paired end gables and 5 large lunettes along the sides, and two large square chimney towers at E corners of four stages with panelled sides and tall false machicolations, containing truncated round chimneys. Iron hoppers inscribed VR with fouled anchors.
INTERIOR: the main entrance archway has 3 vaulted bays, cantilevered granite open-well stairs each side with iron balusters, and offices. The main former workshop areas arranged around a grid of cast-iron I-section stanchions to pierced segmental arches and metal-trussed roofs, E and W aisles have trussed timber beams, with two traveller roads. The foundry has H-section iron stanchions to pierced segmental arches under the valley, 5 E bays with heavy fire-proof mezzanines, and corner winder stairs. Roof trusses with cruciform struts, flat-iron ties in pairs or threes at the ends, and wrought-iron tie rods.
HISTORY: the Steam, now North Yard opened in 1853. The design of the Quadrangle evolved from a group of separate workshops round an open court to a roofed building with a grid of early rolled stanchions which could be flexible in its internal arrangements. Fitted with two beam engines either end of the foundry with line shafting through the building and an internal railway, the forges were drawn by five large flues to the two chimney towers. The culmination of a generation of metal workshops in the Dockyards for the new steam navy, the biggest of its type built by the Navy, and a very rare instance of the involvement of a national architect in a Naval workshop. The Quadrangle was moreover a very successful design, outstanding in a national context for its remarkably advanced use of flexible planning, which has ensured its adaptability to the Navy's changing engineering needs.
(Sources: Coad J: A Maritime History of Devon: 11; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989: 653; Evans D: The Buildings of the Steam Navy: 1994: 23-29).
Listing NGR: SX4495755788
