Details
SU 6200 NE MAIN ROAD
(South side)
HM Naval Base
774-1/17/222 South Office Block
(Building No 1/88)
GV II*
Offices and stores, now offices. Offices (west wing) 1786-89, store (east wing) 1789, probably by George White, Master Shipwright; linking block with archway 1840s. Red brick in English bond with ashlar dressings; rusticated granite and ashlar ground floor to centre- piece. Hipped slate roofs with brick stacks. PLAN: double-depth plan offices with spine corridors to Wend, E store, with 1840 central archway. 3-storey 4-bay centrepiece; 2-storey wings, west wing with basement, each of 17 bays with slightly projecting pedimented 5-bay centre.
EXTERIOR: ashlar plinth, 1st-floor band, string above stepped dentilled brick eaves, flat coping to parapets, and cornices to pediments and centrepiece. Windows have sashes with glazing bars in reveals with flat brick arches and stone sills; oculi with radial glazing bars to pediments. Lead rainwater pipes with bulbous heads, dates 1787 and 1789, initials GR and crown. North elevation: left (east) wing has 2 wooden porches, that at centre having frieze with triglyphs and guttae, and flat roof. Centrepiece: wide central carriage arch and flanking pedestrian arches, all with keystones and voussoirs aligned to courses, right-hand archway now with door. 2nd-floor sill band and cornice below parapet. Flanking lateral stacks. Rear (south) elevation: as north elevation, but with C20 stair tower added at centre of left wing. 6-panel doors with overlights to right wing. Within throughway are Tuscan columns, distyle in antis; on east side at south end is a large entrance, now blocked, which has architrave with console- bracketed cornice. INTERIOR: west wing (the original offices) and central block have wall panelling, panelled doors and reveals, simply- moulded cornices, some original offices with fireplaces, dog-leg stair at east end of west wing with large-scantling stick balusters, columnar newels and ramped
handrail. East wing (originally a store) has chamfered wooden columns and large-scantling beams, boxed in on ground floor which also has board- lined walls. Near centre of wing is closed- string straight-flight stair with bulbous columnar reveals, stick balusters, moulded handrail and board-lined stairwell with dado.
HISTORY: the stores were added in the same manner as the offices, at the insistence of yard officers. The Admiral Superintendent's office has always been located in this building. Specialised offices were only built in the dockyards from 1750 (at Chatham), and this is the earliest surviving example, forming part of a distinguished composed group which manifests the concern in the dockyard for formal planning.
(Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of HM Naval Base Portsmouth 1700- 1850: Portsmouth: 1981: 15, plate 11; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690- 1850: Aldershot: 1989: 47, 132; The Buildings of England: Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 411).
Listing NGR: SU6299200361
