Creating a gallery extension for the National Museum of the Royal Navy at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard has involved the £4.5m renovation of a Grade I listed Georgian storehouse by main contractor Warings.
The Babcock Galleries opened last month to coincide with the centenary of the First World War and house a new permanent exhibition that tells the story of the Navy over the past 100 years.
The galleries fill the ground floor of the red brick and timber storehouse, built in 1775, and connect to the existing museum, which is located in an adjacent storehouse of similar design, via a new steel and glass walkway. The refurbishment was led by architect Purcell and project manager Artelia.
The project involved major repairs to the stonework and brickwork and replacement of around 2,000 bricks, which had been badly eroded over the years by the sea air. An existing open-air collonade on one side was reclaimed by infilling each of the stone arches with a structural glazing system to create two large gallery spaces covering the entire building footprint.
Top: The red brick and timber storehouse was built in 1775. Above left: The new galleries are connected to the existing National Museum of the Royal Navy by a steel and glass walkway. Above right: Glass panels allow visitors to see the building’s original floor, which in certain areas is made from timber from Spanish ships.
One of the most significant historic aspects was the building’s original floor, which in certain areas is made up of timbers from old Spanish ships. “We knew there were some Spanish timbers but when we examined the structure more closely we found many more. Some of these have been left exposed and as part of the new raised floor, we installed 10 square glass viewing panels so people can see them,” said Martin Dunseath, an associate, at Purcell.
The single-storey tunnel linking the buildings was conceived as a “contextual intervention” distinct from the original buildings. The overall thickness of the tunnel roof structure had to be the same as the stone bands on the two flanking storehouses. A stainless steel roof was therefore installed on a shallow incline, its terne coating (an alloy of tin and zinc) designed to withstand the harsh weather and match the lifespan of lead.
The centre of the new link space features a gun from the destroyer HMS Lance, which fired the very first shot of the war at sea in 1914. Warings had to crane the 3.6-tonne gun into place before the roof was laid.
