Description

SZ 6399 PORTSMOUTH GUNWHARF ROAD
(West side)
774-1/12/25
HMS Vernon
Building No.47 (The Royal
Marines Infirmary)

GV II

Naval ordnance storehouse, including part of former outer wall with attached ancillary building; used as infirmary by 1865; disused. c1814, for the Board of Ordnance, with later alterations. Patterned red brick with grey headers in Flemish bond, incorporating section of tooled Portland stone plinth, and red brick segmental arches to openings; building No.92 partly stuccoed, ridge stack. Hipped Welsh slate roofs. Late Georgian style.
PLAN: rectangular plan with central stack and ground-floor spine wall; there is a single-depth block attached to the end.
EXTERIOR: building No.47 is 2 storeys with attic, 5 x 4 window ranges, small-pane windows in reveals with stone sills; C20 board door with 4-pane overlight to bay 4; bay 5 ground-floor window bricked up; plat band; string below coped parapet; 2 flat-roofed dormers. Rear: similar, on ground floor left-hand window blocked, 3rd window now door, and door inserted between left-hand windows; on 1st floor, central window blind. To the right is a battered ashlar plinth, probably part of an earlier perimeter wall; a segmental-arched 2-light window above, and grey headers to upper section, the coping sweeps down on right; the ancillary building attached to the rear of this wall has a hipped roof and is stuccoed with a central C20 half-glazed door, 16-pane sash to left and 8-pane sash to right.
Right return: 2 wide segmental-arched recesses, that on right containing C20 door and window, 2 inserted windows between. On 1st floor, recess with inserted window on right; inserted window to its left; original window on left.
Left return: door inserted in right bay and sill of window on its left lowered; a C18 lead rainwater pipe with head.
INTERIOR: has a ground-floor with a brick dividing walls with large-scantling cross-beams supported by slender cast-iron columns, wide-board panelling and containing a cast-iron bolection-moulded Ordnance Board fire surround. Wide corner stair with quarter landing and large scantling rails. First-floor open with central stack rising to roof, which has 3 braced king post trusses with queen posts and irregular braces, altered to allow passage and braced for end hips (similar construction as in Building No.21 (qv)).
HISTORY: armaments and ordnance stores were held here while ships were in Ordinary in Portsmouth. Probably built as part of the same programme as Vulcan block, the main store house, with its characteristic brickwork, as part of the New Gun Wharf extension to the Yard (1770s). The brickwork is found at contemporary local Ordnance sites including Priddy's Hard. Used as an infirmary in the mid C19.
Forms part of the very significant historic dockyard complex at Portsmouth, as well as being a little altered Ordnance store with much original internal detail.
Forms part of a good group with the Vulcan block and former naval offices (qqv). (Source: Coad JG: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 257-259).

Listing NGR: SU6610802158

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26658952

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  London 1: The City of London: City of London v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)