Number 10 Store (Building Number 1/58)

Naval store, now museum. Built in 1776 by Templar, Parlby and Templar (Riley). The building was bomb damaged around 1940 and underwent restoration work around 1991. It is constructed of red brick with some glazed blue headers laid in English bond, with ashlar dressings. The roof is a flat-topped mansard covered in slate with a lead top.

The building has a rectangular plan with a central ground-floor entry and stair. It comprises 3 storeys with a cellar and attic, arranged as 13 bays by 3 bays.

The exterior features an ashlar plinth, 1st-floor band and sill band. Below a plain ashlar cornice is a stepped brick eaves band, surmounted by a coped parapet. The ground-floor doorways have round-arched ashlar surrounds with keystones rising into the 1st-floor band, plinth blocks and imposts. Windows are 18-pane sashes on the upper floors, with 12-pane sashes to the 2nd floor. They have gauged bright-red brick flat arches and ashlar sills (some sills have been replaced in concrete). Flat-roofed attic dormers are present. Rainwater pipes feature square heads.

On the north-east elevation, the bays are arranged 5:3:5, with the centre projecting slightly below a pediment with an oculus. This is surmounted by a 1992 replica clock tower cupola which reuses the original clock faces, ball finial and weather-vane. At the centre is a large round archway in rusticated ashlar surround with imposts; the voussoirs are aligned to courses and feature a modillion cornice. Flanking windows are present, with that on the left replaced by an entrance. Other bays have doorways with round-arched ashlar surrounds, plinth blocks, imposts and keystones rising into a deep 1st-floor band. The rear elevation mirrors the north-east elevation. Above the archway on the 2nd floor is a loading door with crane, and a lunette with radial glazing bars to the pediment. The ground-floor doorways have replacement double board doors and fanlights with decorative glazing bars. The returns each have a central entrance and loading door above, with double doors and fanlights with radial glazing bars. The building is surrounded by a raised pavement of granite slabs carried on iron arches at the front and a brick plinth at the rear, with iron grilles above cellar windows at the front and trap doors at the rear (mostly now replaced by grilles).

The interior includes a cellar with transverse brick walls between bays carrying round-arched brick vaults, and a passage along the rear side. The ground floor has a central through passage with entrances on each side, featuring double board doors, fanlights with decorative glazing bars, and tooled ashlar architraves with imposts and keystones. On each floor, square wooden columns support large-scantling cross-beams and joists, with wide wooden floorboards, some being reused ships' timbers. Much of the woodwork on the south-east half of the 1st floor and of the 2nd floor has been replaced. The original heavy wooden stair rising from the ground to 1st floor has an open well, shallow treads, widely-spaced large-scantling plain balusters, square newels with moulded caps and a broad handrail. The roof is board-lined with braced queen-post trusses of large-scantling timbers; the south-eastern half of the building, including the attic and roof, was rebuilt in 1991–92. The bells and clock in the cupola are 19th century (the clock is dated 1878 and was made by Gillet and Bland, Team Clock Factory, Croydon), brought from a Bristol school, possibly Bristol Grammar School.

This is one of three large stores (with Nos 9 and 11) forming a notably fine group. Much of the Georgian yard was occupied by stores, and these are the most architecturally distinguished surviving examples in any of the naval yards.