North Smithery (SO 23)

Details

SX 4454 NE PLYMOUTH SOUTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard

740-1/95/203 North Smithery (SO 23)

GV II*


Alternatively known as: The Old Smithery, SOUTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard. Smithery, disused. Designed 1808 by Sir Samuel Bentham, Inspector General, extended 1847, cut by railway 1879, extension demolished mid C20. Roughly coursed Dunstone rubble with limestone ashlar dressings; truncated brick chimney to SE corner and corrugated sheet hipped valley roof; internal cast-iron columns. Rectangular plan with central line of columns to valley, and spaces to Wand E for forges.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys externally; 11-window E and W elevations, 6-window N and S elevations. Plain walls with plat band and rusticated quoins, square-headed plat surrounds to windows, some boarded and some with 12-pane ground-floor and 9-pane first floor cast-iron casements. Rail tunnel passes at an angle through the building, via segmental arches with rusticated architraves on Wand N elevations. Chimney, truncated at eaves height, incorporated into the building. Rear elevation has stone corbels at ground-floor height and cast-iron brackets, as well as other evidence of former processes.
INTERIOR: contains a central aisle of tall cast-iron columns to the valley, attached to lower slightly tapered iron columns to a gantry crane in the W section with an early C19 hand-operated traveller; the louvred vents were removed late C19, the roof has late C19 purlins over original queen-post trusses. A c1879 corrugated iron tunnel encloses the train track.
HISTORY: the E half originally had 18 small forges, and the W half 5, the position of whose flues can be found in the roof, which had ridge louvre vents. Fitted with steam-powered machinery from 1845, and the single larger stack built soon afterwards. The tunnel connecting South Yard with the1853 Steam (now North) Yard was built in 1856 but operated by horse wagons; steam trains had a larger turning circle, hence the need to cut through the works when they were introduced. Both the 1776 South Smithery at Devonport, and the 1808 smithery at Chatham (qv), (where Bentham proposed the use of steam blowing engines, not apparently used at Devonport), have a courtyard plan, but were technologically traditional, and similar to the Devonport new smithery. Of considerable historical importance as one of Bentham's innovations to the Dockyards, this also is one of the earliest and least altered buildings of its type in the country.
(Sources: Coad J: The Architectural Development ofDevonport Naval Base 1815-1939: 13; Evans D: The Buildings of the Steam Navy: 1994: 4-5; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 152-155).


Listing NGR: SX4486254618

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

476413

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Coad, J G, The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Architecture and Engineering Works of the Sailing Navy, (1989)
Coad, J, The Architectural Development of Devonport Naval Base 1815-1939, (), 13
Evans, D, The Buildings of the Steam Navy, (1994), 4-5

End of official list entry

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