Numbers 10 to 14 Portsmouth, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

SU 6300 NW SHORT ROW (East side) HM Naval Base 774-1/29/232 Nos 10-14 (Consecutive) and attached railings and walls (Building Nos 1/68-72)

GV II*

Terrace of 5 dockyard officials' houses, part now offices and part accommodation. 1787 with near-contemporary addition (No.10) and C19 and C20 alterations. Building supervisor Thomas Telford; contractors Thomas Parlby and Son. Red brick in Flemish bond with ashlar dressings. Hipped plain tile roof with brick stacks. Cast-iron railings. Mid Georgian style. PLAN: double-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with basement; straight joint between No.10 ( on left) which is of 2 bays with side porch, and the rest, which are each of 4 bays with space between houses and central entrances: step up to wooden porch with incised panels, 6-panel door, fanlight with decorative and radial glazing bars and 12-pane sashes to side-windows; inside, step up to similar door and fanlight in panelled reveal. Windows have segmental brick arches, projecting stone sills, and 12-pane sashes, shorter on 2nd floor; 6-pane sashes to basement. Rendered plinth; ashlar 1st-floor band; stepped eaves with ashlar string; parapet with flat ashlar coping. Party walls rising above roof line as fire walls. Single-storey added bay on right with blind window. INTERIOR of No.14: wall panelling, dado rails, simple cornices, panelled doors and window reveals, cupboards, and original fireplaces throughout. Some of the fireplaces have decorative surrounds, including that in the principal ground-floor room which has husk garlands to pilasters, frieze and mantel, and cherubs in roundels at corners. Entrance hall has round- arched main entrances with pilasters and fan- lights with decorative glazing bars. Closed string open well stair with columnar newels and slender column-on-block balusters. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: basement areas fronted by railings on stone plinth which have urn finials to standards and flame finials to bars. Iron boot- scraper on right of entrance to No.13. Rear: 2-storey 4-bay wings linked by high yard walls (approx 3.5 metres high) which each have a board door below gauged flat brick arch. HISTORY: the terrace was built to house senior dockyard officials, originally the Surgeon, Master Ropemaker, Clerk to Ropeyard and Boatswain, for whom there was not room in Long Row (qv). The Navy customarily provided accommodation for Yard officers, and this is one of a fine series of composed dockyard terraces. (Sources: Coad J: Historic Architecture of HM Naval Base Portsmouth 1700- 1850: Portsmouth: 1981: 12, plate 8; Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690- 1850: Aldershot: 1989: 54; Lloyd DW: Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs: Portsmouth: 1974: 67; The Buildings of England: Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985: 414).

Listing NGR: SU6299200361