Granary, Bakery, Flour Mill, Stores, Attached Boiler And Engine House

Granary, mill and bakehouse at the Royal Clarence Victualling Yard, now disused.

The complex comprises structures built in several phases: part of the west granary wall dates to 1782; the boiler house, flour mill, bakery and stores were built in 1828–29; the granary itself in 1828–30; the engine house and later boiler house in 1862–63; and the Master Baker's Office in 1873. The buildings are constructed in red brick with Portland stone dressings, cast-iron columns and beams, and slate hipped roofs, in late Georgian style.

The plan consists of a central projecting granary with a mill and bakery to the right, with projecting wings to the rear—the southern wing housing the mill engine house. A matching biscuit store once stood to the left but has been demolished. The main river frontage range is 4 storeys high with an attic, featuring a 7 by 10-window range and a 3-storey section; the bakery is a separate 16-window structure.

The exterior presents an imposing range fronting the river quay, formerly symmetrical. The granary is raised on an open ground floor supported by cast-iron Doric columns to the front and sides, connected to iron beams rounded underneath with flanged capitals. Lateral and transverse T-section beams with curved upper profiles and spanner ends are bolted over the capitals, enclosing spiggots; lateral beams have cast sockets in the sides for iron joists. The ground floor has rubbed brick heads to 10-pane sashes. Wide loading hoist doors occupy one bay from each side, set on cast-iron cantilever platforms, with a hoist lucarne in the roof. Flat-headed 2-light dormers are present. The bakery front displays a central pediment 3 bays wide, with double ground-floor doors, first-floor lunettes and a central second-floor hoist door; similar bay treatment appears one bay from the right-hand end. The 7-window end return projects beyond the rear of the main range. A single-storey former office with hipped roof stands to the south at the rear. Attached to the north side behind the granary is a former engine and boiler house with round-arched windows in a matching arcade and a truncated square chimney. A coal store to the north of the engine house is enclosed by an attached wall between the rear wings.

Ashlar storey bands, eaves cornice and blocking course articulate the exterior.

The granary interior contains cast-iron internal columns supporting timber beams, with a shallow roof of timber king post trusses. The bakery features granite open-well dogleg stairs with iron rails and cast-iron posts, some retaining fixings for partition-making. Nine former ovens line a central axial wall, previously with chimneys rising through the roof, with the mixing room positioned along the front; upper levels provided storage space.

The 1782 wall is a surviving remnant of Samuel Wyatt's North Store façade. The machinery was designed by Thomas Grant, a pioneer in food technology who won a Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Arts for his contribution to food technology, received a £2000 Parliamentary Award, and was made KCB for his role as Director of Victualling during the Crimean War. Though less magnificent and more altered than the contemporary Royal William Yard at Devonport, this complex represents one of the first large industrial food processing plants in the country and demonstrates the considerable scale of the navy's victualling operation on this important riverside site. The building is comparable in conception, though different in plan, to Rennie's granary and bakery at Devonport victualling yard in Plymouth.