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Royal Clarence Yard

The main gate of Royal Clarence Yard

Royal Clarence Yard in Gosport, Hampshire, England was established in 1828 as one of the Royal Navy's two principal, purpose-built, provincial victualling establishments (the other being Royal William Yard in Plymouth, Devon). It was designed by George Ledwell Taylor, Civil Architect to the Navy Board[1] and named after the then Duke of Clarence (later William IV, King of England). The new victualling yard was developed on approximately 20 hectares of land,[2] some of which was already in use as a brewing establishment at Weevil[3] on the west shore of Portsmouth Harbour, to the north of Gosport.

Queen Victoria regularly used Royal Clarence Yard as her disembarkation point for the short journey across the Solent to her house at Osborne in the Isle of Wight, travelling from Gosport Station on the single track line extension which had been opened in 1844 principally for this purpose.[3]

Between the establishment of the Yard and its eventual decommissioning in the early 1990s, Royal Clarence Yard supplied provisions to the Royal Navy in all the major conflicts of this period.[3]

In 1995, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) declared 16.26 hectares of Royal Clarence Yard surplus to requirements and released it to Gosport Borough Council.[2] Berkeley Homes bid for the land in 1998 and was granted planning permission for a mixed use development in 2001.[4] The south-eastern part of the Yard (approx 3,74 hectares), which includes the Oil and Pipelines Agency access to the Gosport Oil Fuel Depot,[5] was retained by the MoD for operational reasons.[2] In 2014, the Defence Infrastructure Organisation announced plans to release most of the rest of the retained land at Royal Clarence Yard to Gosport Borough Council.[6]

  1. ^ Burton, Lesley. Feeding the Forces: The History of Royal Clarence Yard 1827-1992. The Gosport Society. p. 7.
  2. ^ a b c "Report to the Secretary of State: APP/J1725/A/05/1185799". The Planning Inspectorate. 2 December 2005.
  3. ^ a b c Burton, Lesley; Musselwhite, Brian (2004). The Book of Gosport. Devon: Halsgrove. pp. 47–52. ISBN 1-84114-336-7.
  4. ^ "The Berkeley Group plc Sustainability Report 2004" (PDF). The Berkeley Group Plc. 2004. pp. 8–13. Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  5. ^ "The Oil and Pipelines Agency: About Us". Retrieved 27 December 2017.
  6. ^ "Land sale could kick-start a new era at Gosport waterfront". Portsmouth News. 12 November 2014. Retrieved 27 December 2017.

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