South Office Block (Building Number 1/88)

South Office Block

Offices and stores, now offices, located at HM Naval Base on the south side of Main Road. The west wing (offices) dates from 1786-89, the east wing (store) from 1789, probably designed by George White, Master Shipwright. A linking block with an archway was added in the 1840s.

The building is constructed of red brick in English bond with ashlar dressings. The ground floor centrepiece features rusticated granite and ashlar. Hipped slate roofs with brick stacks cover the structure.

The plan comprises a double-depth arrangement with spine corridors serving the west (office) and east (store) wings, connected by a central archway dating to 1840. The centrepiece is three storeys high with four bays; the flanking wings are two storeys, with the west wing including a basement. Each wing extends for seventeen bays, with a slightly projecting pedimented centre of five bays.

The exterior displays an ashlar plinth, first-floor band, and a string course above stepped dentilled brick eaves. Flat coping tops the parapets, and cornices ornament the pediments and centrepiece. Windows are sashes with glazing bars in reveals, topped by flat brick arches with stone sills. Oculi with radial glazing bars light the pediments. Lead rainwater pipes with bulbous heads, dated 1787 and 1789 with initials GR and a crown, are a notable feature.

The north elevation includes the left (east) wing with two wooden porches; the centre porch has a frieze with triglyphs and guttae and a flat roof. The centrepiece presents a wide central carriage arch with flanking pedestrian arches, all detailed with keystones and voussoirs aligned to courses. The right-hand archway now contains a door. A second-floor sill band and cornice sit below the parapet, with flanking lateral stacks. The rear (south) elevation mirrors the north, but has a twentieth-century stair tower added at the centre of the left wing. The right wing features six-panel doors with overlights. Within the throughway are Tuscan columns in a distyle-in-antis arrangement; on the east side at the south end stands a large entrance, now blocked, with an architrave and console-bracketed cornice.

The interior of the west wing (original offices) and central block retains wall panelling, panelled doors and reveals, and simply-moulded cornices. Some original offices preserve fireplaces. A dog-leg stair at the east end of the west wing features large-scantling stick balusters, columnar newels, and a ramped handrail. The east wing, originally a store, contains chamfered wooden columns and large-scantling beams, boxed in on the ground floor which also has board-lined walls. Near the centre of the wing is a closed-string straight-flight stair with bulbous columnar reveals, stick balusters, a moulded handrail, and a board-lined stairwell with dado.

Historically, the stores were added in the same manner as the offices, at the insistence of yard officers. The Admiral Superintendent's office has always been housed in this building. Specialised offices were only built in the dockyards from 1750 (at Chatham), making this the earliest surviving example. It forms part of a distinguished composed group within the dockyard, reflecting the formal planning priorities of the naval establishment.