Superintendents House, Attached Walls And Railings

SU 6100 WEEVIL LANE (East side) 1137/5/10027 Superintendents House, attached walls & railings, Royal Clarence Victualling Yard

GV II

Officers' house at naval victualling yard. 1830-31, by G L Taylor, architect to the Navy Board. Stuccoed brick with ridge and end lateral stacks and slate hipped valley roof. Late Georgian style. Double-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attic and basement; 4-window range. A symmetrical front with basement band, cornice and parapet, right-hand porch with cornice has steps up to a doorway and double panelled door and overlight; 3/3-pane horned sashes, formerly 6/6-panes, and some survive, taller on ground floor; flat-headed dormers face each end. Brick rear elevation with a 2 storey projecting central porch with French windows with margin bars. INTERIOR has a central axial passage, with a good central rear open dogleg cantilevered stair with curtail and stick balusters, crossing a round-arched doorway to the rear porch with a fanlight, half-glazed doors and margin lights; original plasterwork and joinery including doors and shutters, and kitchen fittings in the basement. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached garden walls to the right, and iron railings round front basement areas. HISTORY: the house of the Yard Deputy Superintendent, and part of a symmetrical plan with the flanking archway and Superintendent's house (qqv). The navy customarily housed senior yard officers on site. Clarence is on a less magnificent scale and more altered than Royal William Yard, Devonport (qqv), but is never the less one of the first large industrial food processing plants in the country, and indicative of the considerable scale of the navy's victualling operation. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 277 ; Keystone Historic Building Consultants: Royal William Victualling Yard, Devonport: 1994).

Listing NGR: SU6165800327