Gateway And Guard House, Berwick Barracks Museum

The gateway and guard house at Berwick Barracks Museum, built between 1719 and 1721, is likely designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor for the Board of Ordnance. This structure is made of sandstone ashlar and features both left-hand lateral and single right-hand ridge stacks, topped with a hipped slate roof, showcasing a Vernacular Baroque style.

The exterior is a single-storey, three-section range. The street front includes heavy pilaster strips flanking a semi-circular archway with key and impost blocks, leading to wrought-iron double gates. Above the archway is a raised parapet that displays a gilded and painted coat of arms cartouche of George I. The former guard house on the right side has three small flat-arched windows beneath the eaves, while the mess on the left features a parapet that steps down and has a single segmental-arched plate-glass sash.

On the parade ground side, the elevation mirrors the street front, with a raised parapet over the gateway, a six-window guard house that includes a mid-19th century cast-iron glazed verandah, and a five-bay mess with 8/8-pane sashes and a central inserted 20th-century half-glazed door. This building closes the northern end of the parade ground.

Inside, there are no special features noted. Historically, this structure is part of the earliest planned barrack complex in England, predating most other English barracks by nearly 80 years, reflecting the need for a permanent garrison on the Scottish border. It is one of several Ordnance buildings from this period associated with Hawksmoor and Vanbrugh.