Warehouse South of Stanley Tobacco Warehouse

1852-5
Grade II

This warehouse is similar to the north warehouse, being built of brick but is different to that and any of Hartley's other warehouses in that it has a 1.5m rubble granite base and a further 3.3m of rusticated rock-faced red sandstone above. 

It is five storeys high with a basement and 31 bays.

In anticipation of the new Tobacco Warehouse, which separated the southern warehouse from the dock, extensive alterations were carried out in 1895/96, notably by infilling the elliptical arches with bricks and removing the cast iron columns.

Major repairs and reconstruction were carried out to the South Warehouse during 1940-44 because of the considerable damage sustained during World War II. 

The substantial single storey ferro-concrete extension between the south wall of the warehouse and the south perimeter wall of the complex was built in 1916, and is an early, if crude, example of its type.

Much of the hydraulic machinery for the jiggers survives, and is believed to date from around 1900. The hoisting ram is at ground floor, the jib at 2nd floor and the complex power slewing gear at 3rd floor. 

There are also three hydraulic tobacco presses - two double (1900) and one single (1891). On the 3rd floor are four light duty screw presses for pressing in the heads of the hogsheads, moved there from King's Tobacco Warehouse in 1904. 

There is also an open "cage" lift, which is almost certainly original and it is unusual that it has survived, as all of the other similar ones were removed after a man fell to his death from one in 1927. 

It has its hydraulic machinery on the ground floor and its wire ropes are protected in wrought iron conduits.