Earlier this month, and for various complicated reasons, we found ourselves in Devon for the weekend. We used the opportunity to visit somewhere we’ve been meaning to get to for quite a few years – the Royal William Victualling Yard in Plymouth.
Work was overseen by Sir John Rennie and Philip Richards and was completed in the 1830s, resulting in an imposing set of neo-classical buildings that used local limestone and granite. Rennie was engineer to the Admiralty and had also been responsible for completing Plymouth’s breakwater (a project started by his father). The 16 acre Victualling Yard included a brewery, bakehouse and cooperage and was designed for processing and storing the food, drink and equipment needed by ships leaving Plymouth.
The yard passed into private hands in 1992 and in recent years has undergone considerable work to turn the Grade 1 listed buildings into various apartments and restaurants.
