Police Offices (Former Dock Entrance Gatehouse N 223) And Attached Wall

SX 4555 NW PLYMOUTH NORTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard 740-1/92/198 Police Offices (former Dock Entrance Gatehouse, N 223) and attached wall

GV II

Dockyard gatehouse, now police offices. 1854, by William Scamp, Assistant Director of the Admiralty Works Department. Limestone ashlar with granite dressings and slate hipped roof. Free Italianate style. Double-depth plan with square plan S tower. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 8-bay range with 3-storey; 3-bay right-hand range. An irregular W front has a square 4-stage clock tower 3 bays from the right, the middle 6 bays with the upper storey set back, second bay from the left set forward with steep swept French Empire-style roof with 3 round dormers each side and iron finials, and the left-hand bay set back; ground-floor round-arched arcade with an impost band, moulded architraves and keys, with doorways with half-glazed doors in the projecting left-hand bay. The right-hand S tower has full-height recesses with corbel table and bands to each floor, architraves to casement windows, modillion cornice and balustrade; on top is a granite clock tower over a sunken panel with paired oculi, and an ogee leaded roof with small louvred dormers, the top section raised by a blind timber band. Middle section has a panelled parapet, the upper floor with flat-headed windows; projecting entrance bay has first-floor 3-light mullion windows and panelled aprons, and the end bay 3 narrow first-floor windows and cill band. Horned plate glass sashes. The road front is plainer with blocked windows on the ground and first floors. INTERIOR: has plain offices and axial corridor. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the dock perimeter wall extends N for approx. 350m, with interval pilaster buttresses. HISTORY: formerly one of a matched pair of gatehouses at right angles to one another with a curved screen wall and gates that formed the entrance to the new North (Steam) Yard; the other was demolished in the 1960s. Listed for architectural interest and group value with other buildings built by Scamp, such as the Quadrangle (qv), as part of the expansion of the steam dockyard. (Source: The Illustrated London News: London: 1853).

Listing NGR: SX4512655496