Perimeter Walls With Gateways Including Former Main Gate And Lodges

Perimeter walls with gateways, lodges, subsidiary gates, and gun emplacements, dating to around 1870, with later additions and alterations. The walls are constructed of red and yellow brick, and limestone ashlar. They run along the west side of Gunwharf Road and St George's Road, with mid-to-late 20th century gateways near their junction, and breaks at the Isle of Wight ferry vehicle entrance and exit. A former main gate is located at the junction of the road with Park Road.

The wall is approximately 0.3 metres high and has a chamfered ashlar plinth. It features yellow brick panels with black-brick bases, stepped dentilled heads, red and blue header-brick lozenge motifs, and red brick surrounds. A roll-moulding sits below a triangular-sectioned rendered brick coping. Ashlar sections flank rifle bartizans with dentilled cornices, with the wall sweeping upwards on either side. Square brick end piers are capped with rendered pyramidal stones.

The former main gateway has a segmental archway with a stone surround, a machicolated parapet, decorative iron gates with a delicately scrolled superstructure, and, on the west side, bollards made from early-to-mid 19th century cannon barrels set on ends. Flanking the gate are square brick towers with ashlar plinths, bands, coping, and architraves to pedestrian entrances on the east side. The south tower has a blocking course, while the north tower is larger and taller, with a machicolated embattled parapet, a decorative weather-vane dated 1923, and an entrance onto a walkway above the south side of the main entrance. Flanking piers feature decorative brick panels.

On the west side are two single-storey lodges. The north lodge has a porch with heavy square columns and a hipped plain tile roof. The south lodge features a four-bay iron columned loggia and a hipped Welsh slate roof. Two subsidiary gateways are situated south of the present main entrance, each with ashlar piers and a bricked-up round-arched pedestrian entrance within the wall to the side.

Historically, the walls provided security around the former Ordnance yard, serving as an imposing perimeter to the historic Gunwharf site, featuring distinctive 17th-century-style bartizan watch posts.