Former Officers Quarters And Mess, Fulwood Barracks

SD53SW FULWOOD WATLING STREET ROAD (North side)

1023/7/10009 Former Officers' quarters and mess, Fulwood Barracks 29.3.1982

GV II

Officers' quarters and mess, now offices and mess. 1842-1848, by Major T Foster RE, for the Ordnance Board. Rock-faced sandstone ashlar with ashlar cross-axial ridge stacks and slate roof. Late Georgian style. Single-depth plan with double-depth first-floor, and end messes. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and basement; 6:28:6-window range. Long symmetrical range with similar real-elevations and coped end gables; middle range divided into five 5-window sections with central doorways and a left-hand 3-window section with right-hand doorway, and slightly taller projecting end mess blocks with gable-end porches. Middle range has plain surrounds to doorways, overlights with margin panes and diagonal glazing bars, and mid C20 doors, 6/6-pane late C20 top-hung casements, with some original 6/6-pane sashes. End gables have an ashlar porch with clasping pilasters, cornice and blocking course, steps up to a round-arched doorway with pilaster jambs and architrave, radial fanlight and late C20 panelled doors, with a 6/6-pane sash in the end return, and a first-floor window beneath an oculus; the right-hand end porch has a painted diagram of Angelo's sword drill. Rear elevation has doorways without overlights. INTERIOR: has front entrance stair halls divided by screens with radial fanlights and panelled pilaster jambs, to dogleg stairs with turned balusters, wreathed rail and curtail; the left-hand end has a lobby and tall full-width mess room with 2 fire places; basement with axial corridor. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached front and rear iron basement area railings on dwarf walls with diagonal bars, with matching railings to steps crossing areas to the entrances, and to steps down to the basement. HISTORY: originally with servants' accommodation in the basement and officers' in the first floor. Forms the central dividing range between the former infantry and cavalry parade grounds. The barracks was built in response to anxiety over Chartist agitation. Although the south-east barrack range has been lost, the original barracks plan of two parade squares within a defensible perimeter wall is substantially intact, making Fulwood the most complete surviving example in England of the late C18 concept of barracks design. (PSA Drawings Collection, NMR: MCR 58).

Listing NGR: SD5488931717