St Paul's Drill Hall, Huddersfield

St Paul's Drill Hall, Huddersfield

St Paul's Drill Hall was built between 1899 and 1901 and designed by Captain W Cooper. The building is constructed in a mock-Tudor and medieval style, with 20th-century extensions added later.

The principal materials are Yorkshire sandstone, laid in random, snecked courses with ashlar dressings to the administration block and officer's dining room. The drill hall and rear ranges use bricks laid in a slightly random stretcher bond. The roofs are covered with cement slate and grey ridge tiles.

The building is arranged with the administration block forming the principal elevation fronting St Paul's Street, the officer's dining room to the right (south), the drill hall extending at right angles to the rear (east) alongside University Road (formerly Drill Street), with a link range at the east end and a rear cross wing beyond.

The administration block is a symmetrical two-storey, five-bay structure with a plinth running the full width. The central bay steps slightly forward and features a crow-step gable rising higher than the flanking bays, with a tourelle (small turret) rising from the north side of the first floor and a castellated parapet to the south side. A carved stone plaque depicting the regimental coat of arms is set at the centre. At first-floor level is a six-light mullion and transom window deeply set in a splayed recess with a segmental relieving arch. The main entrance comprises a pair of timber gates set in a recessed basket arch gateway with mock drawbridge chain slots above. The upper segments of the gates form a mock portcullis, and the north gate panel has a wicket gate. A foundation stone set in a recessed panel to the north reads: "THIS STONE WAS LAID / BY / FIELD-MARSHALL / LORD ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR / V.C., K.P., C.C.B., C.C.S.LI., C.C.I.E. / MAY 4TH 1899". The flanking bays are gabled and embellished with false cruciform arrow loops. Below are six-light mullion and transom windows to the first floor and ten-light mullion and transom windows inset beneath segmental relieving arches to the ground floor, all with leaded lights. The outer bays project slightly forward to give the appearance of square towers with castellated parapets and outer corner tourelles, with pairs of leaded transom windows to the ground floor and leaded transom and mullion windows to the first floor. The roof is hipped with a large tall ridge stack between the northern-most two bays and a smaller end stack to the south.

The north side elevation of the administration block has the appearance of forming a rectangular tower with a castellated parapet and tourelles to each corner, all projecting slightly forward of the side wall of the drill hall. The elevation is asymmetric with a single offset two-light transom window to the first floor and three to the ground floor.

The officer's dining room is a single-storey, three-bay extension to the south of the administration block employing similar detailing but with a flat roof and plain parapet. The central bay is canted but does not project beyond the lowest plinth course, and has an eight-light mullion and transom window. Flanking bays have single, narrow, two-light transom windows. The south end is blind and has a broad, projecting chimney stack.

The drill hall has a tall, single-storey, nine-bay elevation to the north, supported by projecting buttresses with sloping, stepped coping slabs. The central bay is filled by a pair of timber gates beneath a segmental arch with an arched window above. The three bays to either side have tall arched windows with ashlar quoined surrounds and cills with uPVC glazing units. The bays at either end have similar windows but with much higher cills, these lighting galleries internally. The roof is hipped to the west, merging into that of the administration block, and has a gablet at the east end above the partly hipped roof of the link range. The roof has cast-iron rainwater goods attached to timber soffit boards above projecting ashlar corbels. It has four large four-light skylights to either side of the ridge, set about two-thirds up the roof slopes, and two square timber ridge ventilators with pyramidal caps.

The link range is a narrow two-bay section forming a two-storey lean-to to the drill hall. The abutting rear range forms a two-storey, seven-bay cross wing with a gabled roof with unusual finials. Both are simply detailed with replaced window joinery that mainly appears to imitate the likely original glazing pattern.

The caretaker's quarters are three storeys with a flat roof, abutting the east of the officer's dining room and south of the administration block. They are of utilitarian design but have snecked stonework to the blind west elevation.

Various 20th-century extensions, mainly flat roofed, extend from the south side of the drill hall into the parade ground.

The interior of the drill hall features a timber boarded roof supported by wide-span, semi-circular trusses formed of laminated and bolted timber, which rise from the sprung timber floor. The walls are of exposed, fair-faced brickwork. At either end of the hall is a full-width gallery supported by timber struts. The east gallery is accessed from the link range via a central archway infilled with a glazed screen. The west gallery is accessed via two sets of stairs from the hall floor and doorways from the administration block. The east gallery front forms a First World War memorial in the form of a three-bay Ionic temple front, framing the regimental crest and battle honours. Panels to either side carry the names of the fallen. Further panels and memorials are attached to the east wall both above and below the gallery. The west gallery front features a smaller, simpler war memorial to the Second World War, also in the form of an Ionic temple front. Further memorials and plaques are attached to the west wall of the gallery either side of a large painting of a First World War battle scene. Above is a large painted panel of a Victorian Royal crest. Along the north side wall of the hall is a set of modern portacabins. Attached to the south side wall is a Roll of Honour for those who served in South Africa 1900-02.

The ground floor of the administration block and officer's dining room includes the drawing room of the officers' mess, entered via an internal panelled-timber porch. It has a coved cornice, dark timber skirting boards, panelled doors, picture rails, trophy cabinets and an Arts and Crafts-style fireplace with rail, surmounted by a glazed trophy cabinet against the chimney breast in the south wall. Next to the fireplace is a door to the officer's dining room, which is more simply finished with a cornice, three round ceiling roses, brass wall bracket lamps, shallow skirting boards and a parquet floor. The south wall has an infilled fireplace with a plain, stepped, grey limestone fire surround with ogee moulding and a relief of the regiment's crest. The north wall is an oak plaque listing regimental battle honours.

The link and rear range are simply treated internally. A large basement room with a central row of plain cast-iron columns is accessed externally from the parade ground and is used as a gymnasium.