Hydraulic Engine House

Hydraulic Engine House, Weevil Lane, Royal Clarence Victualling Yard

Engine house with well, built in 1862. Designed by Andrew Murray, Chief Engineer of Portsmouth Dockyard, under the direction of Colonel G T Greene. The building is constructed of red brick in English bond with slate roofs and lead dressings.

The plan is compact, with a main boiler house running the full length of the north side. A long wing extends south adjoining the bakery and mill, containing the well within a re-entrant angle. A 3-storey tower rises within this angle. A detached stack formerly stood to the north side but has since been demolished.

The building is carefully detailed throughout. Main window and door openings feature brick arches over recessed panels with brick voussoirs. The original design drawings show entrance doors centrally positioned on the north side, but this elevation now has two 9-paned sash windows with radial bars to the upper sash and, to the right, a blind panel. The return facing the bakery is arranged in 4 bays, with a blind panel and two sashes matching those to the north, followed by a wider and higher recessed arched opening containing a wide pair of plank doors beneath a fanlight. The west front originally had a sash window but now contains a full-height pair of wide plank doors with 4 vertical glass panes in the upper parts. The tower rises above, with a recessed sash window below a smaller 9-pane window with radial bars, beneath a small oculus fitted with louvres. The tower's return has corresponding features treated as blind panels, except for a lower sash within an arch (without radial bars) to the right in the lower portion. The wing containing the well returns with a narrow pair of plank doors set in a recessed arch with radial light, and a full-height pair of plank doors containing 6-pane lights beneath a concrete lintel at the outer end; these doors replace an original sash window. All roofs are hipped. The boiler house features a continuous lantern with louvres. Eaves throughout are finished with a moulded cornice above a brick dentil course.

Some of the original heavy timber framework for machinery survives in the interior.

The engine house was constructed following discussions in the early 1860s regarding suitable power supply for the adjacent great mill and bakery, and for maintaining the water level in the reservoir. This reservoir supplied fresh water for naval shipping; the associated Tank Store had been built thirty years earlier. The engine house was designed to maintain a hydraulic head of 700 pounds per square inch. Despite its purely functional purpose, it is a handsome building executed in a late Georgian tradition. Its design may have benefited from special consideration given its proximity to the splendid adjacent bakery building. It represents an early and fine example of a hydraulically-powered engine house and is of considerable importance in the developmental history of the Royal Clarence Yard site.