Slaughterhouse and Attached Yard Wall, Royal William Victualling Yard

Details

SX 4653 NW
740-1/65/751

PLYMOUTH
CREMYLL STREET, Stonehouse
Slaughterhouse and attached Yard wall, Royal William Victualling Yard

GV I


Slaughterhouse and attached yard wall now stores. 1830-31, by Sir John Rennie Jnr, for the Victualling Board, stores from c1885. Limestone ashlar with granite dressings and slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style.
PLAN: single-depth ranges in a triangular plan round a yard with cattle pens against the NE perimeter wall, SW slaughterhouse and N office.
EXTERIOR: single storey; 3:8-bay front with 19-window SW side. Principal front forms part of the Yard entrance, a pair with the facing Police House (qv), all of granite with an 8-bay Doric colonnade from the entrance with entablature and parapet in front of a recessed limestone wall with doorway; the SW bay infilled by C20 office. At the SW end is the slaughterhouse gable, which has banded pilaster strips to a cornice, set forward to the central pilasters which have scrolled brackets on top and to' each side, beneath a cornice and pedimented bellcote, with a round-arch containing a late C19 brass bell and wheel; 3 round-arched doorways with small-paned metal fanlights, the central one with rusticated surround and jambs and a door of 4 flush panels, blind outer doorways each side with rusticated jambs. Long SW return has a granite plinth, cornice and parapet, is articulated by a round-arched arcade with small-paned metal lunettes, and 2 doorways with double doors; 1-window N end. The NE external wall blind, of rubble with an ashlar band, rising off the ashlar Dockyard Wall (qv); at the N end is a blocked doorway with ashlar surround, the similar S doorway was the cattle entrance. Inner courtyard elevations have round-arched arcades to the southern sides, with C20 metal-framed windows, and a formerly open arcade of iron columns with flanged capitals to the old cattle lairs to the outer wall, now also glazed. The roof to the slaughterhouse has a ridge lantern. The yard is paved and drained.
INTERIOR: contains a king post roof. HISTORY: live animals entered the slaughterhouse by the entrance set back from the Main Gate. Fewer original fittings than the slaughterhouse at Gosport (qv), but within a more complete complex of victualling buildings. Forms part of an important group with the Main Gate and the matching elevation of the Police Buildings (qv) opposite, as part of the formal entrance to the Yard. 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: 39-46; 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: SX4622053649

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

476485

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
The Royal William Victualling Yard, (1994), 39-46
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

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.