Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

The West Ropery (site of), South Yard, Devonport Dockyard

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1002573
Date first listed:: 21-Aug-1969

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Scheduled Monument
List Entry Number:: 1002573
Date first listed:: 21-Aug-1969

Location

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

District:: City of Plymouth (Unitary Authority)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: SX 45176 54196

Summary

Part of the laying house of the West Ropery, South Yard, Devonport Dockyard.

Reasons for Designation

The production of ropes and sails were a fundamental industry connected with ports since they were crucial to both naval and merchant shipping. Despite its partial destruction through bombing the surviving part of the laying house of the West Ropery, South Yard, Devonport Dockyard with its cellared storage is an integral part of this whole specialised process, and enough survives to appreciate the uniqueness of the process of producing a lengthy, slender, specialised, fibrous product.

History

See Details.

Details

This record was the subject of a minor enhancement on 13 October 2015. This record has been generated from an "old county number" (OCN) scheduling record. These are monuments that were not reviewed under the Monuments Protection Programme and are some of our oldest designation records.

The monument includes part of the 18th century laying house of the Ropery in Devonport Dockyard and is known as the West Ropery. The laying house survives as the foundations and below ground brick vaulted and stone-faced storage cellars of a relatively narrow but up to 360m long building. Approximately 44 of the cellars remain intact and are accessed from the west side of the building. The cellars were used for storing tar used in connection with the rope making. The long building was specifically designed for the production of rope whereby the fibres were stretched and twisted along a rope walk. Latterly specialist machinery was employed to help industrialise the process. The laying house was built in an around 1743 and was a crucial part of a thriving dockyard. The building was bombed during the Second World War and only the foundations and cellars survived.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: PY 654
Legacy System:: RSM - OCN

Sources

Other
PastScape Monument No:-437600

Legal

This monument is scheduled under the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Areas Act 1979 as amended as it appears to the Secretary of State to be of national importance. This entry is a copy, the original is held by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.