Royal Clarence Yard

rdf:langString Royal Clarence Yard

rdf:langString 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 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, some of which was already in use as a brewing establishment at Weevil 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. 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. 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. Berkeley Homes bid for the land in 1998 and was granted planning permission for a mixed use development in 2001. 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, was retained by the MoD for operational reasons. 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.