Mines and Countermines Store (Building 409)

Details

1137/0/10116 PRIDDY'S HARD 17-APR-09 Mines and Countermines Store (Building 409)

GV II Mines and counter-mines store, with attached examining room. 1899/1900. Brick in English bond, slate roof on steel trusses.

Long narrow gabled building in 15 bays, internal size 45.7 x 11.4m, with small attached gabled examining room at SE corner. The long sides are boldly modelled with large square buttresses, with a tile-coped single offset, capped by a concrete pad, which is continued as a brick eaves band across the bays; a plinth with chamfered top is set back from the piers. Boiled rectangular steel plates and a projecting steel arm to each buttress at mid-window height relate to a crane rail within. Each bay has a 9-pane light to cambered brick head and Portland stone sill, set near eaves level. The S gable end has a pair of framed plank doors flanked by similar 9-pane lights, all to cambered brick arches, and end pilasters return as a gable verge course; smaller gable, right, is similarly detailed, with a pair of plank doors to a straight lintel, and this unit has a 2-bay return with buttresses and lights as for the long returns. The N gable end is similar to the S, but without the added unit. The eaves has a plain board and moulded cast-iron gutter, missing in part to the W side.

INTERIOR: a central tramway passes right through the building, and continuous crane-rails run at mid-window height.

HISTORICAL NOTE: This building of 1899/1900 was built in close proximity to the Shell Stores and Transfer Shed (qv), and in a similarly distinctive architectural style, as developed by the Admiralty architects after the take-over from the War Office in 1890. It forms part of an important group at the S end of this site, with the large Shell Store of 1879 and the Shell Stores and Transfer Shed (qv). It is the most impressive surviving structure associated with the storage of this key item of naval ordnance. Harbour defence mines had been the responsibility of the Royal Engineers until 1905, the Royal Navy only being concerned with offensive minelaying in enemy waters and the destruction of his devices by means of countermines; this building served that purpose, but by 1913 was being used as a guncotton store.

The magazines and related structures at Priddy's Hard date from the late 18th century. The site's expansion from the mid 19th century was closely related to the development of land and sea artillery and the navy's transition from the age of sail, powder and solid shot to the Dreadnought class of the early 1900s. Priddy's Hard retains the best-preserved range of structures that relate to this remarkable history of continual enlargement and adaptation, one that encompasses that of Britain's dominance as a sea power on a global scale. For further historical details on this site, see the description for 'A' Magazine.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

500743

Legacy System:

LBS

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