Do you fancy living in an octagonal 18th century water tower … – Devon Live

How do you fancy living in an 18th-century water tower, built by French prisoners and used as an air raid post, now with three bedrooms and impressive Devon views?

The octagonal home, converted from its industrial and military use seven years ago, has just gone on the market with an asking price of 600,000.

The water tower is situated on the site of the former Royal Naval Hospital, now a secure gated community. And if you really love history, shell and shrapnel scarring can still be seen on the walls from when it was used as an air raid post

During its renovation, which was closely monitored by the local conservation office, the 110ft tower was transformed into a three-bedroom home and retains many of its original features, including the old limestone walls.

Other features include the hand-built oak, double splayed staircase, vaulted and beamed ceiling in the living room and porthole windows.

Even the original lead lined, wooden frame for the water tanks has been retained to give useful and accessible store room space.

On the market with Plymouth estate agents Mansbridge Balment, the property, which is set over three floors, also has an extensive kitchen and dining area, a drawing room with a vaulted glazed and beamed feature ceiling, a garden room with floor to ceiling windows, a study/library and even a sauna.

Chris Mervyn, branch and marketing Manager at Mansbridge Balment's Plymouth city office, said the tower was a unique and highly desirable property, steeped in history and a triumph of 18th century engineering.

"The construction is amazingly precise in terms of the masonry and quoins," he said. "The tower is not out of vertical at any point by more than half a centimetre and it tells its own unique story of how water supplies were first brought to the city of Plymouth.

"Its rich history is also very much in evidence in the top gallery of the tower where you can still see shell and shrapnel scarring on the walls from when it was used as an air raid post during World War II."

There is a master bedroom with ensuite shower room on the first floor, with two further bedrooms on the second floor.

Both floors are accessed via a spiral staircase, which ascends to the top of the tower, where double glazed doors open out onto the turret viewing area.

Outside, the tower offers a lawned garden, as well as a roof garden made up of two terraces finished with artificial grass.

There is also a patio area with hot tub and access to a workshop.

Mr Mervyn added: "The current owners have made countless additional enhancements to the property, including buying additional adjacent land to extend the plot and converting the garage to extend the tower's living accommodation.

"The tower may have stopped supplying water more than 100 years ago, but its future as a highly exceptional and unique residential property is assured."

The water tower is an historic, Grade II* listed building and is thought to date from 1758-1764 and was at the time, one of the first of its type to be constructed.

Under the watchful eye of the local conservation office, the property was painstakingly restored to a high standard throughout seven years ago and converted into a bespoke residence.

Many of the original materials have been retained, with the old limestone walls being in evidence through much of the accommodation, while the original lead lined, wooden water frame for the water tanks has been retained and is below your feet as you wander around the viewing turret at the top of the tower, to sample the breath-taking views that include Drake's Island, Plymouth Sound and Mount Edgcumbe.

In many ways 'matters water' have dominated RNH Stonehouse from the outset and the city well before that. As South West Water come to the end of the most extensive (and expensive) survey of our drains in history following their most welcome recent full adoption of our Georgian system, it is interesting to recall where it all began.

Clean water was the gold of its day, and is how a former mayor Plymouth, Sir Francis Drake, helped to amass his fortune as a land owner, post his world travels, in the days of Elizabeth I and long before the concept of RNH was conceived.

In those days he effectively 'cornered' the first public water supply bringing it off Dartmoor in a leat, or stone ditch, to supply the city which then consisted of three towns, Stonehouse, Plymouth, and Dock (now Devonport).

Of course, like today, this supply was not for free and it was a major engineering undertaking some 400 plus years ago and to provide it thereafter in a sustainable form, ensuring Plymouth's prosperity.

The leat divided into three, and the supply to Stonehouse ran along what is now North Road West over Eldad Hill and then through the Millfields and over to Durnford Street ending in a 'shoot' where washing was permitted. Licensed abstraction could take place up stream of this but no polluting of course and Water bailiffs patrolled constantly to prevent this.

The leat was the main reason for choosing to site RNH midway between the towns and additionally on its own inland half tide creek with a private harbour.

Sometime after the hospital became operational in the early 1760s, complaints were received from the mayor of Stonehouse that the supply was being starved at certain times of day, therefore, the Navy were swiftly obliged to build a reservoir at the highest point of the site, in the form of a water tower, to buffer the demand peaks.

This also provided a head of pressure so that the whole hospital could be supplied through pressured lead pipes.

The single, huge, lead-lined, octagonal tank at the top, with a staircase in the middle, was filled by a continuous leather bucket chain on the west side powered by a donkey walking around a windlass in a manger with a hole in its roof, which is now the drawing room.

Later the donkey was replaced by a steam engine and the buckets it drove and lifted, dipped into and out of the leat which still runs right beneath the house under the oak floor planks in the kitchen.

The leat then goes on through to the main square and under the sundial and in some places a man can walk in its downstream tunnel. Ot was once used as an escape route by press ganged sailors who ended up somewhere near where Princess Yachts is now - and got caught.

The octagonal water tower was built by French prisoners from the Seven Years War and the top gallery of the tower was used as an air raid post in World War II.

The former Royal Naval Hospital was built in 1760 but its main buildings had stood empty since it was hit by a World War Two bomb in 1942.

Intended to be primarily accessible by water with patients landing at Stonehouse Creek, work originally began on the RNH Stonehouse site in 1758.

The design was influential of its time; its pattern of detached wards, arranged so as to minimise spread of infection, foreshadowed the pavilion style of hospital building which was popularised by Florence Nightingale a century later.

The first patients arrived in 1760 and in 1762, more patients were transferred from hospital ship HMS Canterbury and the main hospital buildings were completed.

The hospital housed 1,200 patients in 60 wards, its 10 ward blocks arranged around a courtyard with a central block containing a chapel, dispensary and staff housing.

The hospital went on to serve the Royal Navy for 235 years, providing staff from Trafalgar to the Falklands.

It saw many additions and changes throughout its history of service and the team of surgeons and nurses finally amalgamated with the main hospital at Derriford in Plymouth in March 1995.

The hospital was closed in March 1995 and the Millfields has since been turned into flats and commercial units.

Reporting by plymouthherald

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Do you fancy living in an octagonal 18th century water tower ... - Devon Live