Number 17 Store (Building Number 1/64) And Bollards At North West And South West Corners

SU 6300 NW ANCHOR LANE (South side) 774-1/29/188 HM Naval base No 17 Store (Building No 1/64) and bollards at NW and SW corners

GV II*

Hemp store, now store. Dated 1781, much altered mid-late C20. Red brick in English bond with blue headers to 2nd floor and forming band above ground floor. C20 flat-topped mansard roof of plain tiles with rooflight replaces former double-pitched roof. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys. 14 bays. Ashlar plinth on south side. Buttresses to ground floor, each with brick table and stepped offset head. Windows have segmental brick arches, replacement soldier-brick arches on 2nd floor, projecting sills, C20 metal windows. Large, inserted, C20 loading doors with folding metal doors. Boxed eaves. On north side, board door at right end; bays 8 and 10 blind. At east end, single-storey 1-bay addition; above it, gable of main range has date picked out in blue headers. INTERIOR: replacement rivetted steel roof trusses. Replacement internal structure. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: at north-west and south-west corners are bollards formed of upended cannon barrels, probably early-mid C19 reused as bollards mid-late C19; muzzles blocked, that of south-western bollard by a cannon ball. HISTORY: originally called the East Hemp House, and built as part of the rebuilding of the ropery after the fire of 1770. It is similar in design to the adjacent Nos 16 and 15 Stores (qqv). Though much altered compared with the roperies at Chatham and Devonport, this is still one of the largest integrated groups of C18 industrial buildings in the country. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of HM Naval Base Portsmouth 1700-1850: Portsmouth: 1981: 19, plate 15; The Buildings of England: Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 413 ; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 204-206).

Listing NGR: SU6299200361