Officers' Mess, Proof And Experimental Establishment, Horseshoe Barracks

Officers' Mess, Proof and Experimental Establishment, Horseshoe Barracks

This complex building served as an officers' mess and accommodation within Shoebury Garrison. It began as a coastguard station around 1825, to which a library and former dining room were added in 1852. The building was extended to the rear in 1861–2, with further dining room extensions and accommodation buildings added in 1898.

The structure is built in yellow stock brick in stretcher bond with Portland stone dressings on the 1890s elements. It features lateral and ridge stacks and a slate hipped roof. The plan comprises a central double-depth library building, a right-hand L-shaped former dining room with dining room extension, and single-depth axial plan accommodation.

The exterior is predominantly single-storey, though the accommodation range to the left is two storeys. The central library building displays rubbed brick flat arches to tall ground-floor 6/9-pane sashes and first-floor 3/6-pane sashes, with two right-hand casements. A late 19th-century glazed porch with plinth, mullion and transom windows and half-glazed 20th-century double doors occupies the centre, with half-glazed doors to the returns.

To the right, the former dining room is set back beneath a moulded pediment gable containing a keyed lunette. It features tall rubbed brick segmental-arched 12/12-pane sashes. The 3-window right-hand return includes a blind window to the front and a lateral stack. The long right-hand dining room displays a tall 12/12-pane sash to the left and one large and two narrower sashes to the right of centre, with projecting exterior chimneys either side. The right-hand return has a 4-light canted bay with a hipped roof.

The rear contains a decorative cast-iron glazed porch and a former billiard room, now used as the kitchen. The 1898 left-hand accommodation forms a long symmetrical range with ashlar cill bands and dentil detailing. Two-window ends are set forward, and projecting entrance bays at each end feature semi-circular gables. The segmental-arched doorways have 4-pane overlights, margin lights and double 4-panel doors, beneath 3-light mullion and transom first-floor windows. Ground-floor segmental-arched and first-floor flat-arched horned plate-glass sashes have rubbed brick heads.

Internally, the former dining room retains trusses with arch-braced canted ties and trefoil-headed spandrel panels, together with oak half panelling and fluted Corinthian pilasters to the fireplaces. The dining room contains half-glazed dado doors beneath broken pediments, three fireplaces, a dado rail and panelled dado, and a plastered ceiling with a principal beam supported on double brackets springing from paired pilasters. The accommodation range features a rear corridor and eared fireplace surrounds in the bedrooms.

This building forms part of the original Horseshoe Barracks, built for the British School of Gunnery, which opened in 1856. The 1850s mess buildings represent the earliest phase of the complex, whilst the later accommodation building is included for its significance in the development of the broader mess complex.