Description

SX 4454 SE PLYMOUTH SOUTH YARD, Devonport Dockyard

740-1/97/225 South Saw Mills (5 128,148, 149,150)

GV II*

Saw mills, disused. c1856-59, probably designed by Col G T Greene, RE, Director of the Admiralty Works Department; sawing machinery by James Horn, steam engine by Easton and Amos. Limestone ashlar with corrugated sheet roof, fire proof iron internal frame.
PLAN: rectangular open plan with 7x5-bay saw mill and N former engine and boiler house and chimney (demolished) attached to its Wend. 2 storeys, attic and basement; 8:2-window E and W range, 1 :6-window N range and 2:3:2-window S range.
EXTERIOR: E and W elevations have wide clasping pilasters to a cornice and coped parapet, plat band, the 2-window N ends set forward, the second bay from the N has a double door with a radial fanlight, the first bay has a blocked ground-floor window; the main saw mill range to the S has an iron-framed ground-floor of large I-section cast-iron stanchions and sliding metal doors beneath continuous upper glazing with three 12-pane lights to each bay. A sloping apron of granite setts extends down from the doors. N engine and boiler house elevation has a 1-window E section set forward, with fenestration as the E elevation. S elevation has openings within matching arched recesses, round on the ground floor and segmental on the first, to ground-floor 6/6-pane sashes and tilting first-floor casements. 3 gables, taller in the middle, separated by buttresses.
INTERIOR: a massive, fire-proof, internal cast-iron frame with hollow round columns to a jack-arch floor springing from cast-iron beams with parabolic bottom flanges; iron roof trusses with hollow section iron valley beams. Open-well stone stair in NE corner.
HISTORY: closely related to Greene's contemporary saw mill and smithery at Sheerness (qv). Timber was fed in from the E, through 4 reciprocating frame saws and 3 circular saws arranged along the N-S axis of the mill. In the engine house was a pair of 50hp Easton and Amos rotative beam engines with spur gearing to the drive shaft, and probably providing a forced draft to the adjoining South Smithery (qv). The iron frame is a comparatively old-fashioned system, the heavy work of the mill, built to withstand severe vibration, directing this robust design. Considerable interest as an almost complete fireproof multi-storey saw mill by one of the most important RE officers involved in iron-framed buildings in the dockyards, with its sister building the South Smithery (qv).
(Source: PSA Drawings Collection: Unsigned Drawings: 1855: PLM 93-96; Sheerness Dockyard: 1994).

Listing NGR: SX4498654180

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554659

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

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of History Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)