Building 65 (Shell Filling And Packing Workshop), Rnad Bull Point

740-1/0/10052 RNAD BULL POINT 17-APR-09 Building 65 (Shell Filling and Packing Workshop), RNAD Bull Point

GV II Shell-filling workshop, later carpenters' shop, now store. 1862. Limestone ashlar with rock-faced quoins, plinth and dressings, and corrugated sheet roof.

PLAN: rectangular plan.

EXTERIOR: single storey; 3-window range. End gables have a left-hand doorway with a boarded door and a window to the right with C20 glazing bars; NW side has a wide doorway to the left with flat lintel, 3 windows with C20 glazing bars, and a segmental-arched doorway to right of centre with double doors. NW side has 3 blocked windows. The windows at the ends have been shortened, and the end windows on the front elevation converted into doors.

INTERIOR: early C20 metal trusses.

HISTORY: Built for filling and packing shells. This comprises one of the key functional buildings at Bull Point, one of a group built around a road extending from the magazine enclosure.

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).