Building 55 (Tube And Fuze Store), Rnad Bull Point

740-1/0/10048 RNAD BULL POINT 17-APR-09 Building 55 (Tube and Fuze Store), RNA D Bull Point

GV II Store. 1856-7. Limestone ashlar with rock-faced quoins, plinth and dressings, and corrugated sheet roof.

PLAN: rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR: single storey; 3-window range. NE side has a central segmental-arched doorway with a boarded door, and flat-headed windows each side, blocked. Rear elevation has 3 similar blocked windows. Gables with oculi to the top. Wide, shallow, coped gables have central segmental-arched doorways with recessed, boarded doors, and a narrow ventilation slit to either side, and 3 flat-headed windows above with mid-C20 glazing. SW end has a central lean-to with two doorways.

INTERIOR: timber trusses.

HISTORY: This is a unique surviving example of a specialised type of building relating to the new explosives technology of the mid 19th century. It was used for storing percussion caps, fuzes and percussion tubes. In the 1850s fuzes for shells comprised relatively simple components which were stored separately, together with the firing tubes and percussion caps used to fire guns. This comprises one of the key functional buildings at Bull Point, one of a group built around a road extending from the magazine enclosure. It was converted to an examining room in 1866, reflecting a shift of gravity in the distribution system of the site away from the basin (The Camber) following the construction of the powder pier.

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. They comprise both the finest ensemble in any of the Ordnance Yards, consistent with the high standards practised by the Ordnance Board in its designs for fortifications and barracks from the C17 and a remarkable example of integrated factory planning of the period.

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