Tarring And Wheel House (S 136) And Tarred Yarn House (S 137)

SX 4554 SW PLYMOUTH SOUTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard

740-1/98/230 Tarring and Wheel House (S 136) and Tarred Yarn House (S 137)

GV II*

Tarring and wheel house and tarred yarn house. 1763. Limestone rubble and dressings with a slate roof. Rectangular open plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and basement; 5:1:2-bay range. Rusticated quoins, plat band and flat cornice to a parapet, with flat, eared surrounds to openings. N Tarring House has 2 steep gables, 3 ground-floor casements and a wider doorway between the N pair with double iron doors, and 2 first-floor windows. The S Tarred Yarn House is wider with matching details, an altered central doorway with C20 door, and two good dated hoppers inscribed GR. W side has similar details. Connecting the two with straight joints each side is a slightly later (not in 1774 model in National Maritime Museum), full-height archway with rusticated voussoirs and brick inner soffit, cornice and parapet. INTERIOR: Tarring House divided into 3 by diaphragm arches to brick vaults with iron doors, for fire proof construction; it contains a 1793 executioner's trap door and stone slab in the basement beneath. HISTORY: yarn was drawn from the White Yarn store (qv) by capstans in the Wheel House through the Tarring House, before being passed to the Tarred Yarn Store (qv) where it was hung to dry. From there it went to the West Ropehouse (destroyed) for laying. This is an unusually early instance of process flow planning. With the White Yarn Store, and Tarred Yarn Store (qv), part of the most complete tarring and yarn store complex in a Naval dockyard. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of the Royal Navy: London: 1983: 71; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989: 652; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 199-203).

Listing NGR: SX4519854261