Description

PORTSMOUTH

SU60SW WHALE ISLAND
774-1/3/468 HMS Excellent: Quarterdeck Block
08/07/98 (Buildings Nos.17-21, 24 & 25)

II

Church of St Barbara, church rooms, gym, lecture theatre and
warrant officers' wardroom at Naval Gunnery School. 1885, the
wardroom added 1893; later alterations. Red brick in English
bond with ashlar dressings. Welsh slate roofs.
PLAN: roughly I-shaped plan with a central gym, flanking
theatre and chapel, and wider end offices and mess.
EXTERIOR: (6:3:6 bays) with end cross-wings: wardroom on left
of 2 storeys with paired gables; church rooms on right of 1
storey with attic, 2 gabled bays, that on right projecting
further and with porch set in angle. Chamfered plinth; offset
buttresses between bays; stepped eaves; ashlar coping.
Small-pane windows with continuous ashlar sills and lintels,
transomed and with dripmoulds to gym and ground floor of
cross-wings; paired 2-light windows to hall and church.
Caernarvon-arched board doors.
Central range: central section (gym) has central square bay
window with cornice and blocking course, surmounted by large
Royal Coat of Arms. Windows of 3 x 3 lights rising through
eaves under gablets. Central clock tower with swept metal
base; pedimented wooden architrave to clock face on each side;
and ogee metal roof with decorative iron weather-vane.
Slightly lower flanking sections have end doors below 3-light
windows; roofs half-hipped at outer ends; and central ridge
louvres with ogee caps, that over hall with metal finial, that
over church with cross- finial.
Rear: similar with some C20 additions. Tall ribbed brick
stacks with ashlar blocking courses. Porch to church.
Projecting from centre of gym, lower square block with large
chimney; pyramidal roof; and central pyramidal-roofed and
finialed louvre. Left return (wardroom): 2-storey porch;
entrance on left; transomed windows with dripmoulds.
INTERIOR: church has panelled dado; round-arched sanctuary
recess; braced wooden queen post roof trusses; at north end
tripartite wooden 1st World War Memorial with taller central
section having engraving of battleships at sea surmounted by
portrait of Rear Admiral Hood and biblical text. Gym:
board-lined roof with similar roof trusses; framed wooden
sub-structure to clock tower.
HISTORY: the permanent gunnery school on Whale Island was

built by convicts on reclaimed land with spoil from the
dockyard extension. Though architecturally conservative, the
Quarterdeck Block is a unique example of military planning,
including these 5 separate functions in a single imposing
range.
(The Oxford Illustrated History of The Royal Navy: Oxford:
1995-: 255).

Listing NGR: SU6377602639

This List entry has been amended to add sources for War Memorials Online and the War Memorials Register. These sources were not used in the compilation of this List entry but are added here as a guide for further reading, 27 October 2017.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26666930

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

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