Hms Drake, Drake House And Attached Walls And Railings

HMS Drake comprises Drake House and attached walls and railings, built in 1887 as the commodore’s house, designed by Superintendent Engineer Lt-Col P Smith RE. The building is constructed of Plymouth limestone, brought to course, with limestone dressings, and has steep dry slate roofs with projecting eaves and decorated barge boards. A prominent feature is a tower with a very steep roof. The architectural style is Baronial Gothic with some Classical detailing.

The house has an irregular plan. The entrance front is characterized by a three-bay design with a three-storey square tower on the left. This tower has paired lights to the upper floors and a central window on the ground floor. To the right of the tower is a projecting gabled bay with double-transomed three-light windows on the upper floors and a ramped flanking balcony with a cast-iron balustrade and moulded cornice over the projecting ground floor. The right-hand bay features a canted attic dormer window over a first-floor window and a lean-to porch with a stepped tripartite doorway with a triangular pediment above the central doorway, flanked by moulded courtyard doorways, all with moulded hoods, and rusticated terminal piers with plinths, moulded entablature, and rounded caps. Other elevations reflect similar detailing. Original horned sash windows and panelled doors remain. The interior was not inspected.

Attached Plymouth limestone road-frontage walls have dressed plinths and copings topped with wrought-iron railings with trident finials between turned cast-iron stanchions.

Drake House is a unique building type within naval barracks and represents a striking and original composition. It is part of the navy's first barracks for sailors, considered one of the finest and most complete in the country, and demonstrates the status and importance of the Royal Navy at the time of its construction.