Former Admiralty Boat House, Newlyn, Cornwall

Summary

A former Coastguard boat house with watch room of 1901 constructed by the Admiralty to serve Newlyn Harbour.

Description

A former Coastguard boat house with watch room of 1901 date, built by Thomas James and J S Tregenza.

MATERIALS: of two distinct types of Cornish granite: Castle an Dinas rubble for the walls and Sheffield ashlar for the dressings. The roof is covered in slate. Some of the rainwater goods are cast iron.

PLAN: rectangular on plan and of two storeys.

EXTERIOR: a functional design with detailing for embellishment, the boat house has snecked rubble walls with ashlar dressings to the openings, quoins, banding and stacks. The principal elevation (south) has a wide entrance under a cambered arch with two timber sashes to the first floor under a relieving arch. The coped gable end has kneelers and a ventilator. The entrance has panelled timber doors and set in the wall to the left is a postbox with GR insignia.

The flank elevations have timber casements and sashes. The first-floor casements at the south end have shouldered heads. The west flank has a central chimney that is corbelled at first-floor level. The north end elevation has a door to the ground floor and twin sashes with granite dressings and a relieving arch to the first floor.

INTERIOR: the ground floor boat house was converted to a post office in the early C20 and has a timber post office counter and timber wainscoting. There is a door to the first floor stair in the north corner. Parts of the floor are covered in tile, others in herringbone block. A section to the rear has a concrete slab at the former position of a safe. A lateral beam in the ceiling supports the base of the chimney in the west flank wall. To the first floor is the former watch-room and store converted to offices with early-C20 joinery including doors and cupboards.

History

The early historic core of Newlyn lies around the C15 harbour pier and walls of Old Quay (Grade II*), however, after the late-C16 Spanish raid on the town there was much rebuilding. Around this time farmland to the north, in an area known as Street an Nowan, was gradually built over with fish cellars and other buildings and Gwavas Quay became the focal point of activity. The settlement doubled in size and Newlyn became contiguous with neighbouring Tolcarne with Jackford in the C17.

In the C18 and C19 the port expanded further around this industrialised area and provided the crossing point across the River Newlyn to Penzance. Waggons and other traffic accessed the port via a track across the beach in front of Gwavas Quay. The track is shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of 1878, and the land around the site of the former Admiralty Boat House was undeveloped. The construction of the South Pier and North Pier in the 1880s and 1890s instigated the development of the area. The Admiralty built a Coastguard station on the new North Pier after 1886 and a boat house with watch room in 1901. It was completed in November of that year and The Cornish Telegraph reported “it is said to be one of the most convenient, well built and imposing of the boat houses in the division.” It was built on part of area by the landing stage used as a fish market.

By 1903 plans took shape to build a harbour road to replace the track across the beach and to provide the location for a new fish market. The Strand, as the road was called, was finished in 1908 although it is not shown on the Ordnance Survey Map of that year. The former Admiralty Boat House is marked along with a ‘Landing Stage’ and with two small rectangular structures to its north east. However, the whole building is not shown due to a mapping discrepancy. The Coastguard Station is a short distance to the north and was soon to have the ‘Ship Institute’, a fishermen’s mission, built alongside it. Next to the landing stage is a slipway to the track across the beach, which would have been used to launch boats and the ‘rocket wagon’ from the boat house. The rocket was deployed to fire a line to a distressed or sinking ship enabling the crew and passengers to be brought safely to the shore.

Once the Harbour Commissioners Office was built in 1908, the use of the boat house was limited due to access problems and the building was later converted to use as a post office. The post office closed in 2016. In 2017 the ground floor is used as a heritage archive and the first floor is in office use.

Reasons for Listing

Former Admiralty Boat House, Newlyn, Cornwall, a Coastguard boat house of 1901 is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for its elegant composition and design for a building of this type, retaining a distinctive character as a landmark feature at its harbourside location;
* for the use of distinctive granite materials in a confident arrangement using quality craftsmanship;
* alterations to the building are minor in terms of its historic fabric.

Historic interest:

* as an uncommon survival of an early-C20 Coastguard boat house with watch room above it illustrates the cultural interest that such national services embody, and the civic pride that they inspire.

Group value:

* for its contribution to a historic quarter of Newlyn, and its relationship to other listed buildings nearby.

External Links

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.