Description

PORTSMOUTH

SU6300 BISHOP STREET, Portsea
774-1/8/295 (West side)
25/09/72 Treadgolds
(Formerly Listed as:
BISHOP STREET, Portsea
Premises occupied by Treadgolds)

II

Originally a number of separate houses, later ironmongers house, shop, warehouse, iron works and stabling, currently an industrial museum. Early C18 and late C18 houses with some alterations of early C19 date with shop addition of 1849-50, office refurbishment, store and warehouse of 1863, stableyard of 1867 and forge and workshop of 1873-4. Mainly red brick in Flemish bond but some grey headers. Shop premises to extreme right have Welsh slated roof on far right and on left plain tiled roof, brick stack on right. House has Welsh slate hipped roof with brick stack on left, buildings on left have corrugated roof.
EXTERIOR: Bishop Street frontage to east comprises six structures of varying dates. Shop premises is of two storeys four bays but comprises three original separate buildings. The two central bays were a house of 1717 which was taken over by Treadgold's in 1809-11, the left hand bay was a 1716 store above with ground floor central passageway to court of houses behind. At centre of right hand premises is a 9-pane half glazed door with lower flush panels, blind overlight. To left and to right is a 24-pane (6 x 4) shop window and on right a similar 32-pane (8 x 4) window, each flanked by Tuscan pilasters and with attached iron guard rails with spode finials, fascia and bracketed cornice runs across front. To left is a service entrance door with 2-leaf patterned iron gate on front and hatch over on first floor. First floor has two 12-pane sashes and one 20-pane casement, each with moulded architraves. Over the doorway is a recessed plaque with shaped frame and a large painted stone lion which was a symbol of Treadgolds and certainly already in place there by 1870, as a contemporary photograph shows. The house of three storeys one bay was originally a two storey house of 1704-6 with rear extension of 1710, heightened in 1834 by Treadgold's. On the right a 2 moulded panel door with fanlight set under rounded gauged brick arch with stone imposts, to left and to first and second floors is a 14-pane sash set under gauged brick; flat arch with stone sill. Dentil brick cornice and brick coped parapet. To left is a 2-storey extension, originally a 1726-36 three storey house truncated in the later C19 to form a store. This is rendered with a service door and casement over. Furthest to the left is a one storey red and grey brick building, originally a house of 1708 reduced in height c1960 and a monopitch corrugated iron roof added.
South and east fronts are red brick. Some sash windows to internal court.
INTERIOR: Ground floor ceiling beams incorporate some ships timbers, at this early C18 date likely to be C17 ships being broken up, including former cannon ball rack with exposed recesses for 32 pound cannon balls, massive deck beams and bulwark timbers. A former covered way is supported on three ships deck beams. Chamfered newel posts survive of an early C18 staircase in a 1717-8 house and some original roof timbers. 1834 features over the former office include a staircase with stick balusters and mahogany handrail, doorcases with paterae and reeding to the architraves, first floor fireplace with duck's nest firegrate and paterae and reeding surround, cast iron fireplace and second floor C19 Carron fireplace. There is also an early C19 front door with oval panels at first floor level, possibly reused from elsewhere on the site. Treadgold's former office at ground floor level still retains the office fittings of 1863, comprising built-in desks, glazed screen and safe. The Director's office behind retains a late C19 cast iron fireplace. Treadgolds former shop retains original shelving dating through the C19 and into the C20. C19 slate urinal. The first floor showroom retains some C19 wallpaper and there is a First World War graffito to the first floor of Treadgold's house.
HISTORY: This site was developed after 1704 when Queen Anne authorised the building of houses for Dockyard personnel on Sea Mill Furlong, Portsea to ease the pressure within the walled city of Portsmouth caused by the increase in population at the dockyard. Elements of seven early C18 houses remain here, two late C18 houses and others were later demolished. From 1809, Treadgold's established a shop along Bishop Street and adapted the adjoining house for living accommodation in 1834. The original shop was extended to the right in 1849-50 on the site of a knacker's yard with an extension to the shop area and an office above. The street shopfront is unaltered since an 1870 photograph. In 1863 an office was installed on the ground floor of the house, a late C18 tenement adjoining King's Bench Alley converted into a store and a warehouse built in the centre of the site. A stableyard was built in 1867 on the site of earlier tenements. In 1873-4 a forge and workshop was built on the site of three late C18 tenements and some earlier warehouses. Treadgold's ceased trading in 1988 and has since become an industrial museum.

An interesting series of early and later C18 brick houses built for Royal Dockyard professionals, incorporating some reused C17 ships timbers, and from 1809 onwards increasingly adapted to form an ironmongers and steel works with extensive remaining fittings.

Listing NGR: SU6342000380

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26666546

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

• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Huddersfield in 50 Buildings
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)