Admiralty House is a substantial building at Mount Wise, Devonport, Plymouth. It is a Grade II listed building. [3]
Admiralty House is a substantial building at Mount Wise, Devonport, Plymouth. It is a Grade II listed building. [3]
The house was designed by James Wyatt and built between 1789 and 1793 in Plymouth limestone. [3] It was originally known as Government House and served as the home of the military Governor of Plymouth; it later housed the General Officer Commanding Western District until that army command moved out in 1905. [4] The house was then used as the home of the General Officer Commanding Wessex Area until 1934. [5]
The naval Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, who had previously been based next door at Hamoaze House, moved into the property in 1934 and it was renamed Admiralty House. [6] At the same time Hamoaze House, was handed over to the Major-General commanding the Royal Marines. [6]
In 1939-41 a partly subterranean complex of buildings was constructed in the grounds of the house, within the ditch of the old fortifications, to serve as a combined RN/RAF headquarters for maritime operations; similar Area Command Headquarters were constructed at the same time close to the Royal Naval Dockyards at Portsmouth, Chatham) and Rosyth. [7] The Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, visited the house and the combined headquarters in 1941. [8] The headquarters were expanded during World War II by a series of tunnels, known as Plymouth Underground Extension (PUE), which formed a sizeable bomb-proof bunker complex under the garden of Admiralty House; it could be accessed from Richmond Walk, Blagdon's boatyard and Hamoaze House as well as from the headquarters building itself. PUE was closed in the 1950s but the headquarters block continued in use. [9]
After the war the combined headquarters (renamed Maritime Headquarters) remained in use as headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief, and as such provided command facilities for NATO operations in the Eastern Atlantic, together with local co-ordination of RN, RAF and Civil Defence capabilities, and assorted intelligence and maritime surveillance facilities. In the mid-1980s and early 1990s the facility was comprehensively upgraded. [6]
After 1969, Admiralty House became the home of the Flag Officer, Plymouth until that post was also disbanded in 1996. The complex was then used to house a number of different operations on a temporary basis until 2004 when it was earmarked for disposal. [6]
The house was marketed for sale as a potential hotel in 2014 and much of the surrounding site was adapted for residential use in 2015. [10]
The Admiralty was the British government department responsible for the command of the Royal Navy until 1964, historically under its titular head, the Lord High Admiral – one of the Great Officers of State. For much of its history, from the early 18th century until its abolition, the role of the Lord High Admiral was almost invariably put "in commission" and exercised by the Lords Commissioner of the Admiralty, who sat on the governing Board of Admiralty, rather than by a single person. The Admiralty was replaced by the Admiralty Board in 1964, as part of the reforms that created the Ministry of Defence and its Navy Department.
Plymouth Sound, or locally just The Sound, is a deep inlet or sound in the English Channel near Plymouth in England.
East Stonehouse was one of three towns that were amalgamated into modern-day Plymouth. West Stonehouse was a village that is within the current Mount Edgcumbe Country Park in Cornwall. It was destroyed by the French in 1350. The terminology used in this article refers to the settlement of East Stonehouse which is on the Devon side of the mouth of the Tamar estuary, and will be referred to as Stonehouse.
Devonport, formerly named Plymouth Dock or just Dock, is a district of Plymouth in the English county of Devon, although it was, at one time, the more important settlement. It became a county borough in 1889. Devonport was originally one of the "Three Towns" ; these merged in 1914 to form what would become in 1928 the City of Plymouth. It is represented in the Parliament of the United Kingdom as part of the Plymouth Sutton and Devonport constituency. Its elected Member of Parliament (MP) is Luke Pollard, who is a member of the Labour Party. The population of the ward at the 2011 census was 14,788.
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Admiralty House may refer to:
Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches was the commander of a major operational command of the Royal Navy during World War II. The admiral commanding, and his forces, sometimes informally known as 'Western Approaches Command,' were responsible for the safety of British shipping in the Western Approaches.
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Navy. The largest naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth, England.
Navy Command is the current headquarters body of the Royal Navy, and as of 2012 its major organisational grouping. It is a hybrid, neither a command, nor simply an installation. Royal Navy official writings describe Navy Command Headquarters both as a physical site, on Whale Island, a collective formed of the most senior RN officers, and as a budgetary grouping.
The Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth, was a senior commander of the Royal Navy for hundreds of years. Plymouth Command was a name given to the units, establishments, and staff operating under the admiral's command. Between 1845 and 1896, this office was renamed Commander-in-Chief, Devonport. The Commanders-in-Chief were based in what is now Hamoaze House, Devonport, Plymouth, from 1809 to 1934 and then at Admiralty House, Mount Wise, Devonport, from 1934 until 1996.
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Western District was a command of the British Army.
Hamoaze House is a large detached house in Mount Wise, Devonport, Plymouth, built in 1795 as the home of the Commander-in-Chief, Plymouth. It should not be confused with the earlier Admiralty House, Mount Wise, built 1789-93 as the home of the military Governor of Plymouth.
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In 1989 the Royal Navy was under the direction of the Navy Department in the UK Ministry of Defence. It had two main commands, CINCFLEET and Naval Home Command.
The Former Command House is a historic building, located at Kheam Hock Road in Singapore. It was the residence of the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of Malaya during British colonial period.