Listed Building: DOCKYARD EXTENSION WALL (1244592)

Includes: Dockyard Extension Wall, FLATHOUSE ROAD HM NAVAL BASE Dockyard wall. c1864 -1870 (Riley) with C20 alterations. Rubblestone and red brick. Chamfered plinth. Quoined brick pilaster strips and brick bands. Domed brick coping. Wall is approx. 4 metres high and at irregular intervals ramps up over round archways which give access to gun bastions which on the outer face of the wall are expressed as corbelled semi- circular oriels with 3 gun slits and coping. At intervals there are bricked-up quoined doorways with concreted lintels. Opposite building No. 3/88 (not included) is the old Pitt Street Gate which has rectangular piers of banded brick and concrete blocks with flat concrete coping and lamps; 2-leaf board gate with iron spikes. Near the Unicorn Gate ( qv) on the inner side of the wall is a reset small iron cupboard having strap- hinged door with circular vents and central hole. Originally the cupboard was set nearer the Unicorn Gate and in the outer face of the wall; inside was a gas jet from which pipes could be lit. HISTORY: the cupboard was on the outside of the wall since smoking and carrying of matches was forbidden inside the dockyard. The wall was built as part of the dockyard extension programme which was begun in 1864, the scheme for it being drawn up by Colonel Sir Andrew Clarke (Royal Engineers). (Sources: The Buildings of England: Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 418; The Portsmouth Papers: Riley RC: The Evolution of the Docks and Industrial Buildings in Portsmouth: Portsmouth: 1985: 22, 25). Selected Sources Books and journals Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1967), 418 Riley, R C, 'The Portsmouth Papers' in The Evolution of the Docks and Industrial Buildings in Portsmouth, (1985), 22, 25