Details
SU 6100 WEEVIL LANE
1137/5/10088 Royal Clarence Victualling Yard
01-MAR-01 (East side)
New South Store
GV II
Store house originally for brewery dry goods and beer, later rum and sugar. W range incorporates part of Samuel Wyatt's large storehouses in 1758. 1830/31, as part of G L Taylor's development of the yard, extended and remodelled 1897/98, damaged and reduced in height 1940, the result of bomb damage. Red brick in modified Flemish bond (two stretchers, one header), W wing slate hipped roof on timber trusses, remainder flat roof, not visible.
A large compact rectangular range of building in one, two and three storeys, and three long parallel ranges; the earliest of these is the W range, in a single storey with original hipped roof. Taylor's work provided a three- storey, double range L-plan structure, bays also projecting, the whole with hipped roof. As a result of the 1940 destruction, most of the building is now in two storeys, but with a small NE corner section still with three storeys.
The S front is in five bays, the main front 17 bays, and the N return, 7 bays (18 before bombing). Large 12 or 16-pane sashes have stone sills and fine brick voussoir heads, and there are loading-doors taken to ground or floor level in 2 bays to the S, 3 bays to the E, and 3 bays to the N. The brickwork is severely plain, 3 bricks thick to the lower floor, and 2 1/2 bricks above with continuous flush Portland plat-band string-courses at first floor and former second floor levels, plus high brick parapet to a thin stone coping. The small 3-storey section retains a portion of the original moulded cornice, below a (rebuilt) parapet. W range has cambered heads over 14 large 16-pane sashes, also plate door to bay 5. Stone string above 3 -course plat band, then flat coping to parapet.
INTERIOR: (a), the single storey W range retains the wide-span trusses carrying two purlins, the upper purlin in each case supported by strutted posts in a combined king-and queen-post design. Close-spaced plain rafters carry close-boarding, and there is a series of roof-lights to the internal slope. The inner wall is in thick brickwork, formerly with a series of arched openings, now filled. (b), The centre range has heavy fire-resistant construction, specified both because of the heavy loadings envisaged, and also because rum storage implied a heavy fire risk. The spine wall between this section and the outer (E) range has a series of piers connected by wide segmental arches to a low breast wall, the openings filed with close-spaced iron grillages. Interior brickwork is painted throughout. At the NE corner is a wide closed-string timber staircase with sturdy handrail and square newels, to close-spaced square balusters.
This storehouse has a very complex history, set out in detail in Evans. Wyatt's 1758 store, on the same site, is reflected in the current building. What remains, although abbreviated through rebuildings but especially by bomb damage, nevertheless forms an important part of the Yard's history, since it was needed when the Royal Navy made a significant change from issuing a beer ration to providing grog ( a tradition continued until after WWII). It lies parallel with, and to the W of, the great Tank Store (qv), and reflects a significant change in Naval History, when beer ceased to be the basic issue, and grog took over.
(Evans,D: THE ROYAL CLARENCE YARD - some buildings reconsidered: Gosport Borough Council, 1999; Evans,D: The Royal Clarence Yard - COOPERAGE AND RUM STORE: Hampshire County Council - 2000: Coad, J: THE ROYAL DOCKYARDS - 1690/1850: RCHME - 1989).
