Clarence Store, Royal William Victualling Yard

Details

SX 4553
740-1/64/730

PLYMOUTH
CREMYLL STREET, Stonehouse
Clarence Store, Royal William Victualling Yard

GV I


Store; disused. 1829-31, by Sir John Rennie Jnr, for the Victualling Board, ironwork by Horsley Company iron founders; partly offices after arrival of Navy Ordnance Board in 1891. Limestone ashlar and rubble, granite dressings, ashlar stacks, cast-iron internal columns and iron-framed, tiled hipped double-pile roof. Late Georgian style.
PLAN: rectangular open plan in three sections. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys; 9:7:9-window range. Symmetrical front and rear elevations with central section set forward, granite plinth, banded rustication on ground floor to a plat band, first-floor band, cornice and parapet, raised to the middle section, with rusticated quoins; segmental- arched ground-floor, flat-headed first-floor and square second-floor windows, with 1960s small-paned metal windows with tilting casements, some late C19 timber sashes, loading doors with iron frames to centre and 3 bays from each end of the outer ranges, with double doors, and iron swing hoists to the upper floor. The plat band is inscribed "CLARENCE" at the S end of the NE side. Matching 4-bay ends, the N has blocked ground-floor windows.
INTERIOR: contains an internal frame of 3 rows of iron columns to timber beams, and a single row on the second floor to segmental cast-iron arches under the valley; the roof is to the same design as in Melville and the Old Cooperage {qv), with flat wrought-iron ties and king and queen ties, cast-iron L-section struts, I-section principal rafters, linked by purlins with parabolic bottom flanges, bolted and wedged together. 2 stone cantilevered open well winder stairs with iron stick balusters, one with a gate from the top landing, in the inner corners of the outer blocks to the SW side. In the SE end is the 1891 office with light-weight partitions and a dogleg stair with stick balusters and moulded newels.
HISTORY: used as stores throughout its life, and less altered than the other victualling buildings at Royal William. The first building to be completed, it also contains the earliest of Rennie's all-metal roofs at the Yard, {originally slated), and was partially fire-proof, with iron doors and windows, because of storing inflammable spirits. These are important early examples of fire-proof construction, comparable with contemporary fire-proof textile mills. The Yard is one of the most remarkable and complete early C19 industrial complexes in the country, and a unique English example of Neo-Classical planning of a state manufacturing site.
{Sources: Keystone Historic Buildings Consultants: The Royal William Victualling yard, Stonehouse: 1994: 1-11; The Mariner's Mirror: Coad J: Historic Architecture of HM Naval Base Devonport 1689-1850: London: 1983: 382-390; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 282-290).


Listing NGR: SX4597153460

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

476477

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Royal William Victualling Yard, (1994), 1-11
Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989), 282-290
Coad, J, The Mariners Mirror The Historic Architecture of HM Naval Base Devonport 1689-1850, (1983), 382-390

End of official list entry

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