Royal Arsenal, Royal Laboratory West Pavilion

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 21/05/2020

TQ 4479 786/9/50

PLUMSTEAD ROAD SE18 (North side) Royal Arsenal, Royal Laboratory West Pavilion

08/06/50

GV II Gunpowder works, west pavilion, now disused. Part of the Royal Laboratory 1694-1696, extended and altered 1802, partly demolished. Flemish bond brick with stone dressings and slate hipped roof. Single-depth plan. Two storeys; five-window range. A symmetrical front has a pedimented entrance bay set forward, with rusticated voussoirs, plinth and plat band; the doorway has a good surround with eared architrave and a console cornice, set below first-floor architrave with foliate brackets to an eared architrave with a lion key. The pediment contains a cartouche with the arms of William III. Rubbed brick flat arches with keys to altered or blocked sashes.

INTERIOR: not inspected but noted as having no internal division or flooring and a C19 iron roof.

HISTORICAL NOTE: the oldest part of the Arsenal, and possibly the oldest Ordnance buildings in the country: one of a pair of pavilions with that to the east (qv) which are the only surviving part of a larger building, to which the Royal Laboratory for the manufacture of fireworks and gunpowder transferred when it moved from Greenwich in 1695. It had cross windows, lower buildings each side, and the yard was closed to the north and south with gate piers from which came the lion and unicorn finials now on the Board Room (qv). The courtyard between the two pavilions was covered in 1854, and contained the largest milling machinery space in the world when it was completed. This was demolished mid 1950s.

Listing NGR: TQ4295478475