Quick Fire Shell Store, Approximately 19M W Of 'A' Magazine

1137/0/10117 PRIDDY'S HARD 17-APR-09 Quick Fire Shell Store, approximately 19m W of 'A' Magazine

GV II Quick Fire Ammunition Store. 1896/7. English bond brick with slate roof. Rectangular plan. Segmental header arches over all openings. South gable end has double-leaf central door flanked by casement windows which were deepened using the original sills in 1916. Outer clasping piers, with stone caps, to brick coped parapet. 10-bay side elevations with similar fenestration, each bay being recessed and articulated by brick pilasters. INTERIOR has metal roof trusses.

HISTORICAL NOTE: This imposing range of 1896/7 is sited close to the main site entrance and 'A' Magazine. After an example at Bull Point, Plymouth, it is the most impressive surviving example of a structure for the storage of this important new type of naval ordnance, significant within the context of this site and its unique historical importance. The windows were sensitively deepened when it was converted into a carpenters' machine shop for the Experimental Mining Depot in 1915, when the opening of the depot at Bedenham had made its original function redundant.

The magazines and related structures at Priddy's Hard date from the late 18th century. The site's expansion from the mid 19th century was closely related to the development of land and sea artillery and the navy's transition from the age of sail, powder and solid shot to the Dreadnought class of the early 1900s. Priddy's Hard retains the best-preserved range of structures that relate to this remarkable history of continual enlargement and adaptation, one that encompasses that of Britain's dominance as a sea power on a global scale. For further historical details on this site, see the description for 'A' Magazine.