Listed Building: NORTH OFFICE BLOCK (BUILDING NUMBER 1/144) (1272312)

Includes: North Office Block (Building No. 1/144), MAIN ROAD HM NAVAL BASE Smithery, then clothing store, now office block. 1791-94; change of use 1852; C19 and C20 alterations. Red brick in Flemish bond with ashlar dressings, brighter-red brick arches and stone sills to windows. Welsh slate roof with later brick stacks. Rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, part with attic. Ashlar plinth, 1st-floor plat band, string over eaves band, and coping to parapet. North elevation: 9 bays arranged 3:3:3. End sections project, that on right with stuccoed raised quoins, ground floor, and eaves band, and having flat-arched entrance and four 12-pane sashes; otherwise this elevation has segmental-arched windows with replacement glazing, shorter on 1st floor, the bay 3 ground- floor window replaced by a door. West elevation: 7 1st-floor windows, 3 on right narrower and more closely-spaced. Stuccoing as before. 2 entrances and flat-arched 12-pane, 16-pane and 4-pane sashes to ground floor. 4 segmental-arched and 3 round-arched windows above. Cornice with brick dentils and pediment to right bay. South elevation: 3:5:3 bays, the 3 on left apparently of different build. Ends project. Similar to north elevation but with stepped dentilled brick eaves band and no parapet. Windows of bays 4 and 8 have doors inserted. C20 attic over right section. East elevation: 12 bays. Entrance at bay 7 with original bulbous head to rainwater pipe on its left dated 1848. INTERIOR: in north range at west end some panelled door and window reveals. In south range on ground floor a single remaining chamfered square wooden column. Ground and 1st floors refitted as offices mid-late C20. Braced collared queen-post roof trusses. HISTORY: After the much-altered smithery at Devonport the oldest naval smithery building, although much altered in mid C 19 conversion which removed the original hand forges and chimneys, when it was superseded by the No.2 Ship Shop and Brass Foundry (qqv) for the steam-powered navy; without significant internal details. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 154 ; The Portsmouth Papers: Riley RC: The Evolution of the Docks and Industrial Buildings in Portsmouth: Portsmouth: 1985: 14).