Building MPM814 - NUMBERS 18 AND 19 STORES WITH LINKING AND ATTACHED BOLLARDS (BUILDINGS NUMBERS 1/65 AND 75)

Former Georgian Double Ropehouse (1771-1775), Hatchelling House and hemp store (1771) in Portsmouth Dockyard. Although much altered, the ropehouse was the first Naval double ropery. The buildings are now used as stores.

Georgian Double Ropehouse, Hatchelling House and hemp store in Portsmouth Dockyard. The Ropehouse was built 1771-1775, and was remodelled as a storehouse in 1868. It is 1095ft long. Major alterations and reconstruction work was carried out 1954-1961. The Hatchelling House and hemp store date from 1771. A bridge linking the Hatchelling House and store to the ropehouse at its eastern end was constructed in the late-18th/early-19th century. The house, store and bridge all have later alterations. [1, 2]

History from listing record (see DPM111 for full entry):

in the Hatchelling House, hemp was straightened out, or hatchelled, by being pulled across boards studded with iron spikes. It was then carried across the bridge to the ropehouse for laying, made into hemp strings, and after these had been tarred, spinning into rope. This was the first naval double ropehouse, with the spinning house on the ground floor, the laying house on the 1st and 2nd floors and the lofts used by apprentice ropemakers. The building is the 6th great ropehouse to stand on the site since 1665. The 1760 plan for the dockyard was to move the ropeyard to the N end, but it was burnt down in both 1760 and 1770 before the land there had been reclaimed, and the new ropery had to be re-built on the old site. It was gutted by an arsonist fire in 1776, and rebuilt internally. Though much altered since ropemaking ceased in the mid C19, the ropery is of historic interest as the first naval double ropery, and the model for the much more complete example at Chatham. With the hatchelling house, part of one of the largest integrated groups of 18 industrial buildings in the country. [1]

<1> Historic England, The National Heritage List for England (Index). SPM35.

<2> Moore, Pamela (ed), 1984, A Guide to the Industrial Archaeology of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight (Bibliographic reference). SPM470.