Hms Nelson: The Wardroom And Attached Bollards

HMS Nelson: The Wardroom and Attached Bollards, Portsmouth

Officers' quarters and mess built between 1899 and 1903. Designed by Sir Henry Pilkington, RE, for the Admiralty.

The building is constructed in red brick laid in English bond with a rusticated basement and lavish yellow stone dressings. The slate roof features corniced multi-flue chimneys. The style is Free Baroque.

The plan comprises three linked blocks, each of double depth with a rear centre wardroom. The building rises to 2 storeys over a basement, with the outer blocks containing attics. The central section spans 7 bays with a central entrance tower; the outer accommodation blocks are each 5 bays wide.

The exterior displays ashlar bands and an eaves cornice with architraves featuring tripartite keystones and pediments to the central block. Most windows are 12-pane sashes, and rainwater pipes bear dated heads. The outer blocks have external chimney stacks serving as buttresses on each side of the centre, linked by a pierced arched parapet above the eaves. Tuscan porches mark the centre on the ground floor, with balustrades and above them a 2-storey window with carved panels and a stepped gableted dormer.

The centre block features a projecting tower crowned by an Ionic columned cupola with a ship finial. On the ground floor stands a Tuscan portico on a brick basement with entablature and balustraded panelled parapet, approached by flights of steps at each side and at the front, the latter breaking through under an arch bearing the royal coat of arms. Above this rises a 2-storey stair-window with a pilastered architrave, gablet and obelisk finial. The bay to the left contains a Venetian window on the first floor; the bay to the right has paired windows. Second-floor pilasters, some rising from cartouches bearing admiralty crests, feature end bays with 2-storey canted oriels below gables, which hold former ship figureheads in niches. The linking bays each have a giant blind arch with rusticated voussoirs and a massive carved keystone, with a 5-light window above and a stepped embattled parapet. At the south-west corner stand two inverted cannon barrel bollards.

The interior wardroom is of exceptional quality, with an Ionic entrance featuring a decorative frieze, a massive fireplace, and a musicians' gallery bearing an elaborately carved dated frieze. Above the panelled wainscot runs a series of paintings depicting famous naval battles, including 'The Glorious 1st of June' and 'Copenhagen' by H Wylie, alongside coats of arms of Nelson and his captains at Trafalgar. The roof is arch-braced queen post construction with decorative iron chandeliers.

The stair hall contains marbled columns, and a stair rising around three sides features a panelled wooden balustrade carved throughout with representations of the Victory across the ages and the ship's battle honours, with decorative pediments and finials to the newels. Other principal rooms display panelling, decorative fireplaces, Ionic pilasters and marbled columns supporting friezes and cornices, together with compartmental ceilings. Panelling, doors, light fittings and mirrors were re-used from the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert following its decommissioning around 1953.

A near-identical design was used for the other officers' quarters at Devonport and Chatham naval barracks—the first built for sailors. This is a strikingly rich and strongly articulated architectural work, representing one of the clearest manifestations of the status and confidence of the Royal Navy at that time.