Heavy Engineering Shop at Vickers Ship and Engineering Limited

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SD1968 708-1/13/93

BARROW IN FURNESS Barrow Island MICHAELSON ROAD (west side) Heavy Engineering Shop at Vickers Ship and Engineering Limited

GV II Engineering workshops. c1900 though probably incorporating building of c1875. For Vickers, Sons and Maxim Ltd. Snecked red sandstone, corrugated sheet roofs. Tall single-storey building with multiple roofs and occupying large rectangular site bounded by Michaelson Road and Bridge Road at junction of which is a re-entrant corner.

Michaelson Road front is 42 bays in length and seven roof spans in depth. Left return, to Bridge Road is of eleven bays. Michaelson Road front: continuous, chamfered sill band to tall casements with glazing bars under segmental arches with keystones; band beneath the arch imposts. Bay 35 has double-chamfered round archway flanked by narrower windows in slight projection. Over-sailing course and blocks support gutter and parapet walkway. Gable to right end (at Engine Gate); hipped end to left. Left return (facing Bridge Road): bay 1 (adjacent to Centre Gate) has large round-arched window with impost; keystone and hoodmould in recess beneath inclined corbel tables to gable parapet with ashlar copings and roll finial. Ten bays to right are as Michaelson Road front. A number of fire doors have since been inserted on the Michaelson Road and Bridge Road elevations of the building.

INTERIOR: main length of building has three bays with riveted stanchions, sandstone dividing walls and three other bays with cylindrical stanchions. Lightweight, steel roof trusses. The main range facing Michaelson Road housed ordnance shops in which were built naval gun mountings; three erecting shops measuring 1000 x 50 feet were served by eight machine shops set at right-angles. Ten-twelve mountings for guns up to 12 inch bore could be built at one time. Set back by three bays from Michaelson Road is a three bay section bounded by stone walls which is likely to be the Machining and Erecting Shop shown on plans of the works of the Barrow Iron Shipbuilding Co; this earlier shop originally measured 420 x 150 feet in three spans.

The buildings clearly indicate the scale of operation of the shipbuilding and engineering works at the turn of the century; its roadside frontages make a major contribution to the industrial scene in a town where the buildings of other major C19 industries have been almost completely swept away.