Dockyard Museum, Former Office (So 32)

SX 4445 NE PLYMOUTH SOUTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard

740-1/95/208 Dockyard Museum, former Pay Office (SO 32)

GV II*

Pay office and guard house, now museum. c1780. Roughly coursed limestone rubble with tooled ashlar dressings, a different limestone for the top floor, and hipped Welsh slate roof; truncated stacks. T -plan with central rear wing. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys; symmetrical 7 -window range. Rusticated quoins, plat band and deep eaves, segmental-arched plat surrounds to C19 door one bay from left and original panelled door on right with 2-pane overlights and C19 horned 6/6-pane sashes. Similar fenestration to 2-window returns and to rear, the wing has a left-hand side doorway with 4-panel door. INTERIOR: upper floors have raised ovolo panelling with dentil box cornice, the S ends divided into two rooms with eared architraves to fireplaces, the main rooms with large S fireplaces with reeded architraves, and segmental-arched architraves to panelled doors and shutters. Ground-floor has quadripartite vaulting with (later) cast-iron columns and panelled window shutters set in moulded architraves. Rear wing has two opposing flights of stone dog-leg stairs with iron balusters and wreathed handrails. First-floor has safe room with iron door. HISTORY: the small first-floor rooms were for the Chief and Assistant Cashiers. The c1808 Pay Office at Portsmouth, possibly designed by Samuel Bentham, and the 1828 Sheerness Pay Office ( qv) were also fireproof buildings, with similar plans. A remarkable example of a specialist C18 office, of special interest as an early fireproof design combining pay office and guard house, which reflects the scale and complexity of the operation of the Dockyard in the late C18. (Sources: The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989: 651; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 48).

Listing NGR: SX4497254625