Plymouth Stonehouse 3

I'm finally tying up some loose ends with several series that have been started and not finished. I have just finished my Exeter series, here, and now I intend to finish Plymouth Stonehouse, with two further posts. Part One started at Stonehouse Creek and proceeded past the entrance to Royal William Yard, to Mill Bay. Part Two started overlooking Plymouth Sound, and entered The Royal William Yard through the back door, down the new South West Coast Path stairs, which breach the tall security wall that originally protected the yard from the seaward side. Part Two ended inside the Cooperage building which, when I made this walk, was the only unrestored section of the site. Shortly afterwards, restoration work began on this part of the Yard. I will make a further visit when it is finished and it is open to the public.

Part Three therefore starts off as I leave the Cooperage opposite the Brewhouse and head down to the main entrance and back out into Stonehouse.

The Brewhouse, when in the planning stages of the victualling yard, was intended to have played a major part in supplying the British Navy. Technology, however, was fast moving and it was one of the buildings that never achieved it's full original potential, as by the time it was complete in 1832, it had become possible to take safe fresh water onboard ships. Beer had originally served as the only safe, disease free liquid to drink. In fact the building stood empty for nearly fifty years when part of it was converted to a new slaughterhouse, while the rest served as a rum store. For much of the 20th century the building housed a torpedo workshop.

Since restoration, the building houses 78 apartments, a ground floor commercial space for exhibitions, cafe's and restaurants.

Western Evening Herald - Tuesday 24 June 1997

WEST COUNTRY builders had a chance to show off their handiwork when more than 50 building professionals including architects and surveyors paid a visit to the Brewhouse at Plymouth’s Royal William Yard. The visit gave the professionals a special overview of the £2 million programme of works which is being carried out by Newton Abbot-based Stansell for Plymouth Development Corporation to restore the building.

Repairs

The programme of repairs and restoration has been under way since last summer and has created almost 100 temporary jobs for local craftsmen. Amanda Le Page of architects Gilmore, Hankey Kirke said the renovations were the first repairs to be done to the building in over 150 years.

She said: “So much of the stonework particularly the cornices had fallen into an extremely bad state of repair. In some cases we have had to make replacement cornices.” The sheer size of the stonework -with some of the largest bricks span three metres - also posed a challenge. Massive boulders of Plymouth limestone have had to be specially quarried from the Moorcroft gravel quarry, in order to provide the stonemasons with material from which to cut the bricks. “We have worked with English Heritage throughout and are extremely proud of the quality of work which has been carried out” she said.

This view is of one of the avenues, this one between the Cooperage on the right, and the Melville building on the left.

Melville was conceived as the nerve centre of the operation, begun in 1829, and the second building constructed. This was the administration block, and was also used for food, clothing and equipment storage.

The central cupola contains the yard's original (and still functioning) quarter-chiming clock of 1831 by Benjamin Lewis Vulliamy.

Vulliamy was the clockmaker to the crown and even had one of his designs considered for the Elizabeth Tower in London, what we call Big Ben today. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society on 14 January 1831, and retained his connection with the society till his death.

In 2023 work was underway to create 40 flats within the Melville block; other parts of the building contain offices, restaurants, a gym and a cinema.

Located in the heart of Royal William Yard in the Melville building, the cinema boasts three state-of-the-art screens, as well as a lounge, bar, and restaurant seating, all decorated in the Everyman signature retro style. It’s cinema, but not as you know it!

Showing a wide variety of mainstream, independent and classic films, hosting extravagant special events and presenting a diverse calendar of live entertainment, Everyman has got something for everyone. Everyman Cinema

Named for Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty (1812–1827), this stately structure embodied the Yard’s purpose and status, anchoring the whole site around its classical symmetry and commanding views from Mount Wise. Melville is Royal William Yard’s grand centrepiece — an imposing vision of naval ambition completed by 1832 at a cost of over £40,000. (£2.7 million today) Melville fulfilled its original functions nearly unchanged right up to the Yard’s closure in 1992. Royal William Yard

Here is an invitation in neon for a hot bowl of Vietnamese Phở. Sadly this restaurant, a favourite of mine, recently closed down.

The northern range of this complex of buildings contained a central granary flanked by flour mills, with 27 sets of millstones powered by a pair of steam engines, capable of producing 270,000 lb (120,000 kg) of flour per week. Grain could be loaded directly into the granary from vessels on the quayside.

The southern range contained the bakery, with two sets of six ovens, back-to-back either side of the central spine wall (beneath a row of four square chimneys). There was a central boiler house with a chimney, with one engine to the north and the other to the south (the engines also powered biscuit-making equipment). The biscuits were dried on the upper floors of the side ranges; there was also a drying kiln above the boiler house.

Although fully equipped as a biscuit and bread factory when opened in 1834, it was initially given only one full production run; then in 1839 the equipment was removed and installed instead in the Victualling Yard at Deptford. There was no more baking here until 1843 when, newly equipped, the complex again began to be used for its original purpose (which it continued to fulfil until 1925). It subsequently became a clothing and equipment store. The building was damaged by a fire in 1929, and again in 1960. Wikipedia

The building now houses 86 apartments and commercial spaces.

The Royal William Victualling Yard is arranged around a deep basin lined with granite (designed to accommodate half a dozen 'transports' or merchant vessels). This basin provided the main point of access from the sea.

The Tamar Belle returns to operate our popular hop on and off ferry service from the Barbican, Royal William Yard & Mount Edgcumbe, linking three iconic destinations on the water. With plenty of seats and room on two levels for all local commuters, shoppers, and visitors, licensed to carry up to 100 passengers.

These two grand houses were built for civil service officers in the Royal William Yard and were continuously occupied as homes until shortly after Plymouth Development Corporation took over ownership.

Residence 2 is currently utilised as office space while Residence 1 is now a Boutique Hotel.

The Gatehouse, together with the adjacent Guardhouse and Slaughterhouse, was begun in 1830. The granite 'triumphal arch' gateway is topped by a 13-foot statue of King William IV (the Yard's namesake). It also displays the crossed anchor device of the Victualling Commissioners.

Behind the colonnade is a long triangular yard, which had cattle pens along one side, the slaughterhouse on the other and an office at the far end. Live animals would enter via an arched gateway, just north of the Main Gate, directly into the cattle yard. Up to 100 bullocks per day were slaughtered here to provide fresh meat for vessels anchored in the sound.

The building was in use for this purpose for 26 years from 1859; thereafter it was used for storage. More recently, the Slaughterhouse was used as a centre for building repair and maintenance, before being converted into a restaurant

The "Beef and Biscuit" exterior sculpture at Royal William Yard is a marble slab engraved with the two staple foods of a traditional Royal Navy diet: a ship's biscuit and cuts of beef. It is mounted on an old ship's millstone and is located at the entrance to the yard.

I subsequently did a special post on Ship's Biscuits and even made some from this recipe shown. It's a fascinating history.

This description below would seem to picture a yard which was at the peak of it's role, during the Crimean War, the type of role envisaged when it was designed and built.

Morning Chronicle - Saturday 03 February 1855

R0YAL WILLIAM VICTUALLING YARD.

PLYMOUTH.

Whatever may have been the failings in the late Government, none of its detractors can have occasion to complain of the executive in the different victualling departments at the home stations. The business of your correspondent at this port obliges him frequently to attend at the Victualling- office here, and gives him an opportunity of observing what is passing; and for some months past, but especially recently, the quays and docks of this extensive establishment have been the scenes of great bustle and animation.

The heavy ships that have been fitted out at this port to strengthen the Black Sea fleet have not only drawn their own supplies, but have gone out half laden with additional victualling stores for the supply of the fleet from this station. The Nile, 91, the St. George, 120, and other three- deckers, appointed to take troops from Ireland, drew their supplies here, and that portion of the Baltic fleet which has been refitting here for the spring campaign of 1855 has drawn largely from the resources of the storekeeper of the Royal William Yard.

Independent of the vessels of the Royal Navy this port, from its westerly position, has been chosen as the loading port of a large number of regular transports and hired freight-ships, taken up by the Government for the conveyance of stores and provisions to the army in the Crimea, to the depots at Scutari, Gallipoli, Varna, Constantinople, Malta, and Gibraltar; and at the present moment, irrespective of the demands of the Royal Navy, of which, for the Baltic, Black Sea, and other stations, a great number of vessels are drawing their supplies, several transports and hired freight ships are leading, amongst which are the Rambler, for Balaklava; Sea Nymph and Vivid, for Malta ; Blue Jacket, for Cork; Timandra, for the Crimea ; Cherub, for Constantinople ; besides other vessels hourly expected ; whilst in the delivery basin, the St. Helen's, from London ; Glendwyr, from Portsmouth ; Reform, from Deptford ; and other vessels, from Ireland, are adding to the bustle of the scene in the discharge of their various cargoes ; and beef, pork, rum, sugar, pease, suet, cocoa, coffee, tea, with beans, hay, &c., are passing and repassing for the various ships with the greatest rapidity and order, whilst all around the noise of the hammer in the coopers' yard, the clanking of machinery in the baking department, indicate that the raw material is being converted into its destined form for the sustenance of our hardy tars and noble warriors. Shipping Gazette.

Finally in this section the church of St. Paul's Stonehouse, which was to be the next stop on this walk. Unfortunately I never made it inside, due to restoration work, so this will be another return visit.

The church was built in 1831 and dates from the same period as Royal William Yard. The Gothic style limestone structure was designed by John Foulston and it was extended in 1890. It stands in a little altered Late Georgian street, and represents a significant example (particularly externally) of the work of a prominent local architect. We'll see more of the multi-coloured Georgian surroundings in the final section of this walk in Plymouth Stonehouse 4.

Weekly True Sun - Sunday 23 January 1842

" Died on Thursday last, at his residence near Plymouth, J. Foulston, Esq. M.I.B.A., aged 62. The death of Mr. Foulston cannot fail to excite a melancholy interest in these towns and their neighbourhood, with which his name as an architect is almost as much connected as that of Wren with the city of London. Before his arrival amongst us we had been for centuries in darksome ignorance as to the meaning and merits of architecture.

The success of Mr. Foulston, in his competition for the Royal Hotel and Theatre, fortunately established him as our resident architect; and his subsequent labours for many years were directed to the improvement and adornment of the three towns; naturally promoting that advance of the public taste which is manifesting itself in a general feeling for the "beautiful."

The simple magnificence of our hotel exterior, the majesty of the portico to the Devonport Town-hall, and the classic elegance of the Athenaeum and Plymouth Library, bear ample testimony to the distinguished merit of Mr. Foulston as a disciple of the Grecian school; while his ability and taste in treating the other varieties of design are shown in the Gothic chapel of St. Paul, Stonehouse, and in the Egyptian and Moorish buildings of Ker-street, Devonport. The monumental column in the latter town is also a pure and striking example of the architect's feeling for Greek simplicity and we would suggest that this especially should be individualised as his monument by an inscription to his honour, cut on a brass or marble slab, and let into one of the panels of the pedestal. Mr. Foulston was buried in St. Andrew's New Cemetery on Tuesday last."