Number 4 Store (Mo 70)

SX 4454 NE PLYMOUTH MORICE YARD, Devonport Dockyard 740-1/95/186 No.4 Store (MO 70)

GV II*

Ordnance store. 1722, dated 1723 on hopper, laid out by Colonel C Lilley, Andrew jelf, Clerk of Works, for the Board of Ordnance. Dunstone rubble with granite dressings and rendered W end, with hipped slate roof with flat leaded top. Rectangular open plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and attic; 11-window range with 3-window ends. Parapeted range with end and central window bays set forward with sunken panels and raised sections to the parapet, rubble flat arches to wider doorways in the projected bays and horned 6/6-pane sashes. Good lead hoppers to the centre and flanking projected bays, one inscribed GR 1723. Range of 9 pedimented dormers with 6/6-pane sashes, with one in the ends. Roofs have heavy leaded rolls around the central flat section. INTERIOR: not inspected but noted as having a C18 central spine wall, with timber board panelling and partitions; some original wooden rails. HISTORY: one of the original Ordnance stores, for gun carriages and equipment, and one of the earliest in a Royal Dockyard, a matching pair with the No.8 Store (qv) opposite. Originally built against the quay which curved round the outer sides, a fine and remarkably complete example of an early C18 warehouse within the best surviving naval ordnance yard in the country. (Sources: The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989: 652; Coad j: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 248-254; Hewlings R: English Architecture Public and Private: London: 1993: 211-212).

Listing NGR: SX4481654792