Building 45 (Qf Ammunition Store), Rnad Bull Point

740-1/0/10058 RNAD BULL POINT 17-APR-09 Building 45 (QF Ammunition Store), RNA D Bull Point

GV II Ammunition store. 1896-7. English bond brick with pitched roof covered with corrugated sheet.

PLAN: rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR: single storey; 3 gables wide and 8 bays long. Gables form pediments defined by brick dentil courses, similar eaves, the sides divided into square recessed panels. Segmental brick arches to boarded double doors in the gabled ends, beneath semi-circular arched windows with glazing bars, which break through the cornice. The sides have pairs of small segmental-arched windows with glazing bars in the middle 2 bays.

INTERIOR: timber trusses with wooden plank lining. Two 1ft 6inch tram roads on the floor. Sliding metal shutters to windows.

HISTORY: Built to store Quick-Firing Ammunition, a new type of ordnance, and prominently sited close to magazine enclosure on this key site. It is the most complete example of such a store to have survived in any of the ordnance yards.

Bull Point, located just to the north of the Royal Navy's new Steam Yard at Keyham, was the last great project of the Board of Ordnance, which was abolished in 1856. It provided storage for 40,000 barrels of powder in an integrated complex including a floating magazine where powder was unloaded and the 1805 St Budeaux laboratory where it was checked and processed, before being taken to the Bull Point magazines (SAM). In contrast to other yards, Bull Point was from the outset provided with a set of buildings planned and dedicated to the various functions for the processing as well as the storage of the new types of ordnance which had a revolutionary impact on the design of naval ships and fortifications. All the buildings - mostly in ashlar with rock-faced dressings and fronting an avenue to the S of the magazines - are stylistically coherent with the magazines themselves, and comprise both the finest ensemble in any of the Ordnance Yards and a remarkable example of integrated factory planning of the period.

For a full history of the site, see Building 13 (qv).