Listed Building: FORMER PAY OFFICE (BUILDING NUMBER 1/11) (1244597)

Former pay office. Reputed to be 1798 by Sir Samuel Bentham (Lloyd 1974); C19 addition; bomb-damaged c1940 and subsequently rebuilt. Grey brick in header bond with dressings of red brick and ashlar. Concealed roof. EXTERIOR: formerly 2 storeys, now one. North elevation: 4 surviving bays, building originally extending further to left. Plinth. 4 round archways, the 3 on right closely spaced and containing sashes with glazing bars (radial in the heads of the 2 left-hand windows) and with ashlar sills. Archway on left has C20 part-glazed door and fanlight. All linked by impost band and having keystones rising into 1st-floor band. Traces of former 1st-floor windows, the wall now forming parapet. Rear: much C19 and C20 graffiti. Right return: C 19 single-storey lean-to wooden addition having wooden columns and windows between. INTERIOR: in the 2 right-hand bays, wall pilasters and a central row of cast-iron columns in the form of shafted columns with pronounced entasis support quadripartite brick vaults. Strong-room with safe. Door and windows on north front have wooden architraves and panelled reveals. HISTORY: believed to be one of the earliest examples of a fire-proof building (with iron columns and brick vaults) in the south of England. (Sources: The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 411-412 ; Lloyd DW: Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs: Portsmouth: 1974: 70). Selected Sources Books and journals Lloyd, D W , Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs, (1974), 70 Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1967), 411-412