Dartmouth Pottery

Dartmouth Pottery, formerly Warfleet Brewery, is a large rectangular building dated 1819 with 19th and 20th century alterations. It is situated on Warfleet Creek Road, Dartmouth, built down a hillslope. The building is constructed from local stone rubble, with a red-brown rubble used for the voussoirs; it has single brick chimneyshafts, with other stacks disused, and a slate roof.

The west front has four storeys, including attics and a basement, and is arranged as a 2:3:2-window facade. Most original openings have low segmental-arch heads and contain plain narrow horizontal windows, though many are partly blocked. The left two-window section has been significantly altered with a 20th-century garage door on the ground floor, four 6-pane sash windows, and a couple of oculus windows to the upper floors, largely ignoring the original window positions. The centre section slightly projects forward under a gable, featuring giant full-height pilasters to a top round-headed arch. A central doorway, now leading to an iron bridge across the raised embankment of Weeke Hill (dating from 1863), is located on the second floor, above which is a loading hatch and a datestone inscribed "A.H.H." with the date 1819. Deep eaves are carried on large shaped timber brackets, and the roof is gable-ended. The end walls mirror the west front’s style, with 1:2:1-window ranges divided by giant pilasters to round arches and top windows with round-headed arches. Due to the slope, the ground floor is buried at the uphill end, while the left end features a broad blocked arch leading to the basement.

The interior has been only partly inspected. It has plain, strong utilitarian carpentry, including large square beams supported on timber posts, upright joists with criss-cross bracing on the ground floor, and second-floor crossbeams of large scantling with bead mouldings to the soffit. The roof was not inspected.

The brewery is an important industrial building within the Warfleet area, contrasting with later residential developments.