MAIN OFFICE BUILDING (Building 209)

This is an administration building, constructed in 1811 to designs by Colonel Evelagh, with a later extension in 1920. It is built of brick in Flemish bond with blue headers arranged in a diaper pattern, and has a stone plinth. The later extension uses a cavity wall and stretcher bond brickwork, with a concrete plinth. The roof is slate, with parapets and coped verges.

The building is a long, narrow range of seven and six bays, with the earlier section featuring a three-bay pedimented centre that is slightly set forward, flanked by two bays on each side. The first floor windows are 12-pane sashes, while the ground floor windows have 12 panes plus a three-pane overlight. All windows have fine red brick rubbed voussoir heads and stone sills. At the centre of the pediment is a wide, flush four-panel door with side lights, topped with a radial fanlight over a gauged arch. A thin one-course stone band runs along the mid-height of the building, with a similar band above a two-course brick dentil cornice, below a blocking course with thin stone coping. Each pediment contains a clock. The 20th-century extension, with six bays, is similarly detailed, using concrete dressings instead of stone, and generally has 18-pane sashes to each floor. Doorways are located in the third bay from the east end. The long south front is almost identical to the north. A single-story extension with sashes and a panelled door is at the inner (west) end, and a lean-to structure, formerly a toilet block, is at the far west end. The main range has raised coped verges to the gable ends and at the junction with the extension. Large brick stacks are at the ends of the original section, a smaller stack in the centre, and one at the outer end.

Inside, a dog-leg staircase has open stringing, stick balusters, a columnar newel, a moulded handrail, and wave-moulded treads, present in both the original and later sections.

The site’s development from the mid-19th century was linked to the evolution of land and sea artillery and the Royal Navy’s transition in the early 1900s. This building, along with others at Priddy’s Hard, represents the best-preserved range of structures related to this history of enlargement and adaptation, which reflects Britain’s global sea power. Originally used for officers’ accommodation, accounts, ledger rooms, registry, and messengers, the building sits south of the main Magazine (Museum), separated by a courtyard which is an important survival from the entire complex. The design is typical of late 18th-century naval dockyard buildings. Despite the 1920 extension, which was designed to match the original, this is a fine Late Georgian building, visually and historically linked to the original Magazine group on this uniquely important site; no similar buildings have survived at other ordnance yards.