The Keep

The Keep is a barracks armoury, stores and quarters, now used as a Masonic centre and offices. It was built in 1876, designed by Major HC Seddon RE for the War Office and altered around 1982. The building is constructed of brick with stone dressings and has a hipped slate roof, built in a Fortress Gothic Revival style.

The exterior presents as a three- and two-storey keep with a basement on each side; it has a 3:3:5:3:7:2-window range. The entrance block features corner towers which project forward, along with pseudo-machicolations to a crenellated parapet. Consistent bands run at the flush cill, transom, and lintel levels, with an eaves cornice. The central segmental archway has a moulded arch and small doorways on either side, each with a shouldered lintel and a label mould. There are narrow windows with moulded transoms in the central and right-hand towers, and sash windows with margin panes. One-, two- and three-light transom windows are present on the flanking ranges. The two-window range to the right is set forward, while the range to the left has been truncated. The rear elevation is similar, and the left-hand range includes two two-storey porches with steps leading up to the southwest end, beneath tripartite windows.

The interior features axial corridors, basement lock-ups, and kitchens. The fire-proof keep contains cantilevered dogleg stairs with cast-iron balusters, and central rooms with jack-arch ceilings.

The Keep served as a secure armoury and store, guard house, and lock-up, and was characteristic of the Localisation depots. Built as part of the Cardwell reforms, its purpose was to redistribute barracks around the country, strengthening the connection between regiments and their local areas and assisting recruitment. It was originally the front to a parade ground and barracks. The building is one of only eight surviving Cardwell keeps, with similar examples found in Worcester, Reading, Guildford, Taunton, Devizes, Pontefract, and Bury St Edmunds.