Officers Mess And Regimental Institute To Former Hillsborough Barracks

Officers' mess and regimental institute to the former Hillsborough Barracks, now offices and stores, with attached boundary wall and railing.

Built between 1848 and 1854, this building was designed in response to anxieties over civil unrest. Unlike other fortified barracks of the period, such as Fulwood at Preston, it was not a defensible structure. It represents one of the first barracks planned according to reformed ideas on military accommodation that were developing before the Crimean War, incorporating dedicated facilities including schools and institutes. The building is also notable as one of the earliest examples of an historicist castellated style applied to barracks architecture, following its contextual use at the Tower of London in 1845. During the mid-20th century the building was used as industrial workshops, and it was converted to a supermarket around 1988.

The structure is built of coursed squared stone with ashlar dressings and slate roofs featuring seven ridge and two side wall coped stone stacks. It displays a castellated Gothic Revival style throughout.

The exterior presents a chamfered plinth, half-round moulded eaves, and a coped parapet. The main building is three storeys high with a 25-window range. Windows are predominantly tripartite glazing bar sashes. Ground floor windows are mainly Tudor arched triple lancets with glazing bars and Gothic tracery and hoodmoulds. Second floor windows are predominantly tripartite glazing bar sashes with label moulds. Third floor windows are smaller tripartite sashes without ornament.

The centrepiece comprises a three-window central block flanked by canted crenellated towers with machicolations. A canted oriel window with crenellated parapet and a 2-light mullioned window with flanking lights occupies the centre, with a window and three smaller windows above on either side. A moulded 4-centred arched carriage opening with double board doors and hoodmould forms the entrance, with a window and hoodmould on either side. The flanking towers contain three 12-pane sashes with label moulds on the lower floors and smaller 9-pane sashes above.

Beyond the towers, on either side, are two-storey coped links each containing a 4-light cross mullioned window on the first floor and a 12-pane sash with label mould below. Further outward are slightly projecting blocks with two windows each: on the first floor, a tripartite sash and a 12-pane sash both with label moulds; above, a 4-light mullioned window and a 9-pane sash; and below, a triple lancet and a 12-pane sash with pointed head and hoodmould. Beyond these are wings with seven windows displaying regular fenestration, the two end windows slightly set back.

The rear elevation features a central block with octagonal corner towers and a central carriage entrance. Flanking blocks have regular fenestration, with round-arched openings to the ground floor. At the left end stands a single-storey service building with coped gables and a gable stack. This structure has three plain flat-headed windows on its street front. The rear features an off-centre gable with two tall glazing bar windows flanked by a smaller similar window to the left and a board door to the right. To the right again is a single-storey building with two windows.

The adjoining regimental institute adopts a Gothick style. It is decorated with buttresses featuring two setoffs topped with pinnacles, a coped parapet, and gables with finials. The street side displays six 2-light pointed arch windows with y-tracery and hoodmoulds, while the right end has a similar 3-light window. The left end comprises a buttressed gabled porch with pinnacles to the gable and buttresses, containing a central pointed door. The inner side features an inserted off-centre double door with a billeted lintel inscribed "Institute" and a mullioned overlight. To its left are two 2-light pointed arch windows with double lancets, and to the right are three similar windows.

In front of the main block stand two convex curved boundary walls with moulded ashlar coping. To the right extends a 50-metre length of spearhead cast-iron railing with posts topped with pine cones.

Despite subsequent conversion, much of the original barracks complex survives, including additional structures such as stables, a riding school, magazine, and guard house.