Former Eastney House, Linking Archway And Railings Teapot Row

Former Eastney House, Linking Archway and Railings, Teapot Row

Portsmouth

A group of officers' quarters forming part of Eastney Barracks, built between 1864 and 1866 and designed by William Scamp, assistant director of the Admiralty Works Department, for the Admiralty Works Department. The buildings were converted to offices in 1995 and are now flats. The group includes Nos. 1 and 2 Royal Gate, Nos. 1 and 2 Clock Tower Drive, and Nos. 1–23 Teapot Row.

The buildings are constructed in red brick laid in English bond with brighter-red brick arches and yellow-brick rusticated angle and dividing pilaster strips. They have an ashlar plinth band, architraves, a 1st-floor sill band and eaves cornice with blocking course. The roofs are of slate; those of former Eastney House and the Terrace form a hipped mansard with pedimented dormers. Tall multi-flue brick stacks serve the party walls.

Former Eastney House and Terrace, now Teapot Row Nos. 1–23, comprises three storeys with basement and attic. The south elevation consists of 23 bays. The five left-hand bays (former Eastney House) project slightly, with the remainder divided into 3-bay sections. At the east end is an archway linking this range to the former Alford House, with the former Training Office to the rear (now Clock Tower Drive Nos. 1 and 2 and Royal Gate Nos. 1 and 2). The archway spans 4 bays arranged 2:2 with 2 attic windows. Ground-floor windows are round-arched with ashlar architraves; those above are segmental-arched. Attached railings feature spear-headed bars.

The north elevation of former Eastney House and Terrace is similar in character but features paired projecting 4-storey entrance bays, stepped back on the 2nd and 3rd floors. The entrance to former Eastney House is located at the left (west) end within a single-storey porch with round archway, cornice and blocking course.

The linking archway has a taller central carriageway flanked by pedestrian arches, all round-arched with rusticated piers and arches. Plain cornices and coped parapets sit above the outer arches, with a deeper cornice and blocking course over the central arch.

The east elevation of former Alford House and former Training Office (Royal Gate Nos. 1 and 2) is slightly asymmetrical, consisting of 5+5 bays with those on the right projecting slightly. A projecting full-height entrance bay at bay 3 has a part-glazed door with rusticated surround approached by stone steps. A similar entrance, reduced to a 2-storey slight projection with cornice and blocking course, is located at bay 8. Ground-floor windows are round-arched and those above are flat-arched; the two left-hand bays have blind windows on the ground and 2nd floors. The west elevation (Clock Tower Drive Nos. 1 and 2) contains two similar entrances, now converted to windows, with stone architraves to the fenestration.

The interior of Eastney House, formerly the senior officer's residence, retains some panelled doors and shutters together with decorative plaster ceilings (boxed in). Similar features survive in parts of Eastney Terrace.

Eastney House was built as officers' quarters and is among the best and most complete barracks of the post-Crimean War period. The carefully laid-out site beside the seashore reflects its original use by Marines and is probably the last large defensible barracks built in the country.