Naval Base Mansions, Ferryhills Road, Jamestown

Naval Base Mansions is a three-storey and basement former boarding house, built around 1909. It was designed by William Williamson and constructed by J A Mactaggart and Co of Glasgow. The building has a distinctive U-shaped plan. Its construction notably employed Hennebique reinforced concrete for the main and secondary beams, stairways, landings, and columns.

The basement and ground floor are faced with single courses of brick, with ashlar above the basement windows and below the ground floor windows on the main elevation; the upper levels and rear elevations are rendered. A painted ashlar central bay provides a prominent entrance, topped by a segmental pediment. A string course and a moulded eaves cornice are present, along with plain and strip pilasters – the central pilasters rising into chimneystacks above the roofline – at regular intervals. Large segmental-arched windows feature on the ground floor.

The west (principal) elevation is symmetrical and arranged with five bays, a single bay, and then five bays. The advanced entrance bay contains a round-arched doorway with keystones and raised stone letters spelling out “NAVAL BASE MANSIONS”. The first floor features two windows, and the second floor has two bipartite windows. Flanking bays are defined by slightly advanced pilasters; the ground floor has large segmental arched windows, the first floor has rectangular windows with slight segmental arches, and the bays directly flanking the entrance have circular windows on the second floor. Sunk basement windows have been blocked with brick.

The south elevation, with eleven bays, shares similar fenestration; the basement windows are also blocked. The east (rear) elevation is organized with eight bays, six bays, and eight bays, incorporating a three-storey section with a later added floor, and projecting timber stair towers at each end. The north elevation, also with eleven bays, mirrors the principal elevation, with a later added square lift shaft in the penultimate bay.

Most windows on the front elevations are blocked from the exterior with timber panels, though many original frames remain behind them; the rear windows are blocked from the interior. The windows are predominantly 15-pane timber sash and case, with the large segmental-arched windows having 18 panes and timber frames. The building has a flat roof, coped wallhead chimneystacks, and some remaining circular clay cans.

Inside, a central concrete staircase is flanked by former lavatories, now used as store rooms. The majority of the floor space has been adapted into open warehousing, while the basement remains subdivided with brick walls. The center of the west frontage has been converted to office space. The Hennebique concrete framework is visible as distinctive deep, narrow beams with stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops.