Description

SU 6300 NW ALDRICH ROAD
(West side)
HM Naval Base
774-1/29/183 No 1 Pumping Station
(Building No. 2/201)

GV II

Dock pumping station. Completed 1878. Part of scheme drawn up by Colonel Sir Andrew Clarke (Royal Engineers) and supervised by H Wood, J MacDonell and Charles Colson. Red brick in Flemish bond with blue brick bands and dressings of gauged red brick and ashlar. Corrugated sheet roof.
EXTERIOR: main engine house has 6-bay north elevation expressed as 2 storeys. Small addition of 2 x 3 bays at right-hand (north-west) corner; lower full-depth parallel range with chimney on left (east) side, partially masked by mid-Iate C20 addition; boiler house range across rear (south side). North elevation: 1:4:1 bays with broad, banded end- pilasters. Recessed courses of blue brick. Chamfered ashlar plinth band. segmental-arched pedestrian entrance with board door to left bay. On ground floor, tall round-arched windows with metal glazing bars and ashlar arches, the intradoses with blue brick dentils. Ground floor cornice and 1st-floor band frame recessed panels with blue brick edging. On 1st floor, recessed panels with stepped and cogged heads enclosing oculi with ashlar architraves. Cornice below parapet. End pilasters on ground floor have short round-arched windows with voussoirs; decorative pierced ashlar panels between ground-floor cornice and 1st- floor band, and segmental-arched windows. On left, lower range has 31unettes and ridge louvre to hipped, glazed roof. Set back is tall circular chimney with square, corniced, base and iron-banded shaft with roll-moulding at bottom and dentilled ashlar cornice at top. Returns of main section are in same style, the most west side having a tall segmental-arched entrance with double board door and banded pilaster jambs; lunettes rather than oculi to the 2 bays on its right side. On east side (left return), the lower range has continuous window with panelled wooden pilasters, wooden mullions and 4-pane windows; wall below is concrete-rendered.
INTERIOR: main engine house retains 6 original panelled cast-iron columns with dentilled capitals and entablatures; its south elevation, inside boiler house, in same style as rest of exterior, having rusticated pilasters supporting dentilled round arches.
HISTORY: the engine house originally contained two inverted vertical triple expansion steam engines driving plunger pumps for draining the docks. It also housed the air compressors for the caissons and some of the capstans and cranes. Built into the roof were salt water tanks linked to the salt water firefighting main. An early and architecturally impressive example of a triple expansion engine pumping house, with unusual structural iron work.
(Sources: The Portsmouth Papers: Riley RC: The Evolution of the Docks & Industrial Buildings in Portsmouth: Portsmouth: 1985: 22-23).

Listing NGR: SU6299200361

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26562123

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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