Block C: former salvage store and pattern-maker’s workshop and boundary wall, Underfall Yard

Summary

Block C, former salvage store and pattern-maker’s workshop, 1906, and adjacent boundary wall.

Reasons for Designation

Block C: salvage store and pattern-maker’s workshop is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as part of the late-C19 to early-C20 development of the Underfall Yard as the principal docks management and maintenance facility, which survives well as a diverse collection of characterful and distinctive structures, together illustrating the functioning, operation and development of this site of historic maritime industry;
* while the store and workshop is principally a building of utility, it is thoughtfully composed, carefully detailed and constructed from good quality materials, following the architectural conventions established for the Underfall Yard, characterised by robust, rhythmical forms in Cattybrook brick;
* the building survives well and continues to express its function, with the course of development legible in the fabric.

Historic interest:

* as part of the late C19 and early C20 development of the Underfall Yard as the principal docks maintenance and power facility.

Group value:

* with the other listed buildings within the Underfall Yard, and the adjacent Avon Crescent and Nova Scotia.

History

When the Floating Harbour was created at the beginning of the C19, it reputedly provided Bristol with the largest area of impounded water for shipping in the world, negating the dependency of the City Docks on the tidal River Avon. The scheme of 1802 by William Jessop created a contained harbour with consistent water levels by damming the original course of the river and excavating a new course, or “New Cut”, that diverted the river around the City to the south.

The Underfall Yard has been crucial to the operation and maintenance of the harbour from the outset. It stands on reclaimed land on the original course of the river at the point that it was dammed. An overfall weir was built to manage water levels by draining into the New Cut, with the area around it becoming the Docks Company Works Yard. The larger area of land to the north had been established as a commercial shipyard by at least 1825, and was known as the Nova Scotia Yard, later the Cambria Yard. “Underfall” sluices, to the designs of IK Brunel, replaced the weir in 1840s to scour silt from the harbour.

The Bristol Corporation bought the Nova Scotia Yard in 1880 in order to extend the Docks Company Works Yard, and to bring all maintenance facilities together in one place. Temporary workshop facilities on the site were replaced by a purpose-built complex of buildings to accommodate the diverse workforce, which at its peak numbered 400 and included draughtsmen, plumbers, pattern-makers, blacksmiths, divers, dredgers, engineers, fitters and shipwrights. This first phase of construction was led by Docks Engineer in Chief Thomas Howard, and his successor from 1882, John Girdlestone. A second phase of development was made between 1900 and 1906 under W W Squire, when the yard was expanded and reconfigured in response to the development of the GWR Docks Railway.

The salvage store and patternmaker’s workshop dates from 1905-1906 and was the last substantial building to be constructed in the yard prior to the Second World War. 26-30 Avon Crescent were demolished to provide the plot for the new building; their garden walls remain partially extant in the rear wall of Block E, built in the 1880s (listed at Grade II). Contract drawings show that the four-bay building is a bay wider than designed, and provided accommodation for a pattern-makers’ workshop on one side, and plumbers on the other; latterly it was used by electricians. Two of the three open-fronted bays on the ground floor have been infilled with timber doors, and the third with brick.

Use of the docks declined in the C20 as the size of vessels increased. Buildings at the yard became surplus to the requirements of the Bristol Docks Company, and were let out. Steam-paddle boat operator P and A Campbell let a number of buildings for the maintenance of their fleet. The company occupied the yard until 1958, after which it was largely vacant, and gradually deteriorated. The Underfall Yard Trust was formed in the 1990s and has restored and repurposed a number of the buildings and structures on the site.

Details

Block C, former salvage store and patternmaker’s workshop, 1906.

MATERIALS: red Cattybrook brick laid in Flemish bond; slate roof.

PLAN: rectangular on plan, forming part of the boundary of the yard at the junction of Cumberland Road and Avon Crescent.

ELEVATIONS: a two-storey building of seven bays. The building faces roughly north, and is open-sided on the ground floor, with cast iron columns and a rivetted I-beam supporting the wall above; the six left -hand bays have been infilled: two pairs with timber doors; the third pair with brick. On the first floor, windows are in segmental arched opening and have multiple lights in iron frames with top-opening casements. An external concrete stair has been built to provide access to the first floor. There is a stepped brick cornice and a pitched roof with apex lights.

The road-facing elevation is blind on the ground floor and has a row of seven windows on the first floor. The east gable has a doorway on the ground floor and two windows above. The west gable partially abuts the terrace of Avon Crescent (listed at Grade II).

INTERIOR: the ground floor storage areas are lofty spaces, with exposed painted brickwork and steel I-beams supporting the floors above. The first floor is a well-lit space with ample glazing on three elevations and the roof. It has been converted to offices and has inserted lightweight partitioning. The roof structure has bolted king post trusses and matchboarding above.

The windows retain etched graffiti by former staff: G PERRY 1948, and REES 1908.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the boundary wall to the yard is understood to date from the same period and extends eastward to Block A, the sluice house.

Sources

Books and journals
Malpass, P, King, A, Bristol’s Floating Harbour: the First 200 Years, (2009)
Lord, J, Southam, J, The Floating Harbour: a landscape history of Bristol City Docks, (1983)
Underfall Yard Trust, , Heart of the Harbour: the Story of Underfall Yard, (2018)

Websites
Know Your Place Bristol: Historic Mapping and Monument records for Underfall Yard, accessed 17/02/2023 from https://maps.bristol.gov.uk/kyp/?edition=
Bristol City Docks: a thousand years of history, Underfall Yard, accessed 17/02/2023 from https://bristolcitydocks.co.uk/underfall-yard/

Other
Draft Conservation Management Plan: The Underfall Yard, Keystone, May 2013

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