Number 7 Boathouse (Building Number 1/29)

SU 62OO SE MAIN ROAD (East side} HM Naval Base 774-1/18/211 No 7 Boathouse (Building No.1/29)

GV II

Mast house then boathouse. 1875 (Riley) on site of earlier boathouse. Timber-framed with weather-board cladding, north-east section of red brick with some blue headers in English bond. Hipped corrugated iron roofs. EXTERIOR: four parallel ranges of one storey; 2:2:2:2 x 18 bays, built out over Mast Pond (qv). Small-pane wooden windows in projecting wood frames. Board doors. Built on wood and iron substructure which has iron posts with wooden braces to iron girders and wooden joists. South-west elevation: 8 continuous wide entrances with folding doors. Rear: double board door to weatherboarded left-hand section. Right-hand section is of brick and has 3 recessed bays with flanking pilasters (paired each side of central bay) and stepped, cogged, heads each having central round- arched entrance (now bricked up) with brick "imposts" and 'keystones". Left return: left-hand section is of brick and has tall recesses with cogged eaves and replacement windows below gauged bright- red brick flat arches. Right return: bracketed iron balcony; 18 windows. INTERIOR: square timber posts with braces to longitudinal and cross- beams. Wooden roof trusses with iron king pins and plank ridge- piece. Skylights in northern pitches of roofs. HISTORY: one of a pair of boathouses with No.5 (qv), and with the Lower Boat House, Chatham (qv), the last surviving examples of a once-common type used for building and storing small boats. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 145 ; The Buildings of England: Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 409-410 ; The Portsmouth Papers: -Riley R(: The- Evolution of the Docks and Industrial Buildings in Portsmouth: Portsmouth: 1985: 11).

Listing NGR: SU6296600429