Hms Nelson: Gymnasium (Building Number 81)

HMS Nelson: Gymnasium (Building Number 81), Portsmouth

A military drill hall, now a naval gymnasium, situated on Queen Street. The building was constructed in the late 19th century, believed to date from 1893, and was designed by Superintendent Engineer Colonel Sir Henry Pilkington RE. The north-west elevation probably dates from around 1900. The building sustained wartime damage around 1940, which was subsequently made good, and underwent further alterations in the late 20th century, including rebuilding of part of the south-east elevation in 1992.

The structure is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with ashlar dressings. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate with continuous roof lights over the main hall and tall chimneys with cornices. The building forms a large rectangular block of two storeys, with parts rising to attic level, and features a six-stage clock tower positioned at the north-west corner.

The north-west elevation is a balanced 13-bay facade with a central door set within a corniced architrave. Projecting pedimented bays at positions 4 and 10 each contain a full-height round-arched entrance with a set-back door and a blank cartouche to the tympanum. At the left end stands a projecting pyramidal-roofed tower of two storeys and attic. At the right end rises the prominent clock tower, embellished with angle pilasters and a round-arched entrance. Below the clock face, tripled slit windows appear on each side. The upper stage features a three-bay round-arched ashlar arcade on each side, below a dentilled cornice and swept pyramidal metal roof with finial.

The south-west elevation displays a central projecting pedimented section of two storeys and attic with tripled round-arched entrances set within corniced architraves. A similar projecting section at the right end, apparently later altered, has an entrance with a console-bracketed hood and narrow windows. The north-east elevation is comparable in treatment, with two entrances in its central projection; the first floor of the eight left-hand bays was rebuilt following bomb damage in the 1940s.

Throughout the exterior, windows are furnished with 12-pane sashes, ashlar sill and lintel bands, tripartite keystones, and brick apron panels. Ground floor windows on the north-west and south-east elevations are segmental-arched. Ashlar architraves frame doorways and tower windows; attic windows feature segmental ashlar pediments. An ashlar eaves cornice and coping runs to pediments and towers.

The south-east elevation features projecting machicolated embattled towers at each end and at the centre, with the central tower being taller. All towers have pyramidal roofs. The towers display tripled windows; elsewhere, windows appear in pairs, all having brick pilaster jambs with ashlar plinths and capitals supporting keyed archivolts. Ground-floor windows to the towers are segmental-arched, with decorative tympana to the end towers. One ground-floor window on this elevation bears a date of 1885 and is believed to be reused material.

The interior originally comprised two separate halls—a drill hall and a gymnasium—now unified as a single space. This space is supported by fluted palm-leaf cast-iron columns carrying steel lattice beams that support iron roof trusses. The existing north-west elevation has been built across the line of the original end elevation.

Historically, the building served as the drill hall for the Duke of Connaught's Wessex Regiment. One of the window tympana on the south-east elevation bears the lamb device of the Wessex Regiment. Covered drill halls of this type were introduced during the 1880s to permit drill practice and manoeuvres in wet weather. The building formed part of the first naval barracks at Portsmouth and is comparable with the large drill halls constructed at Chatham and Devonport.