Repairs will be made to Underfall Yard’s historic building including the Grade II* listed chimney
A boat yard on Bristol’s harbourside is to undergo a £3.8m refurbishment and building programme.
The work will see repairs to the industrial buildings at Underfall Yard – a scheduled ancient monument – and a new cafe and visitor centre built.
The red brick buildings, including the Grade 2* listed Power House and chimney will be protected and the abandoned workshop space brought back into use.
The building programme is expected to be complete in 12 to 13 months.
Much of the money – some £2.8m – is coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
The site is a working boat yard with a blacksmith and a diving club
As well as protecting the red brick buildings, a new visitor centre and cafe will be built
As well as the building work there will also be displays, an oral history project, a schools education programme and events.
The Underfall Yard is a working boat yard with a blacksmith and a diving club based on the site.
Nicola Dyer, the project director at the Underfall Yard Trust, said the “major challenge” would be to “transform and improve” the yard while “retaining the raw, working atmosphere that everyone who knows the yard loves”.
When the project is complete the engine room in the pump house will be open for visitors to see
Underfall Yard
For more than 200 years it was the operations centre of the docks, housing the dock sluices, hydraulic lock systems and pump house.
The Floating Harbour was constructed between 1804 and 1809, to allow boats to float and not be grounded at low tide.
In total, the Floating Harbour encloses 70 acres (28.3 hectares) of water.
In 1832 Isambard Kingdom Brunel was brought in to advise on ways to overcome severe siltation at the dock. Brunel advised altering the overfall dam to provide underfalls through the dam to scour the silt out of the dock back into the river.
Engineer John Ward Girdlestone constructed most of the buildings, engineering works and slipway.