Officers Barracks Tilbury Fort

TILBURY TQ 67 NE

126-0/11/10015 Officer's barracks, Tilbury Fort

GV II*

Terrace of approx. 22 officers'houses in fort, now 7 houses and museum. 1772, by the Board of Ordnance; altered early C19. Yellow stock brick with brick ridge stacks and a steep slate hipped valley roof Mid Georgian style. PLAN: double-depth plan, possibly originally back to back. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 23-window range. Symmetrical front has brick cornice and parapet. Central keyed round-arched doorway with 6-panel door, small flanking lights, all beneath a wide ground-floor pediment, and a first-floor oculus; flat-headed doorways with bracketed canopies to panelled doors in the end bays, and paired to bays 6 and 7 from both ends. Rubbed brick flat arches to 6/6-pane sashes, half the original small 3/3-pane sashes with thick glazing bars on the first-floor have been replaced by deeper sashes as the ground floor. Rear elevation similar, with canopied doorways to the feat, third, seventh and central bays, from each end; all but the middle two windows on the first floor are original. INTERIOR: central house preserved as a museum, has a central axial dogleg stair, Ordnance Board iron grates, and original joinery. Each one originally had 2 fireplaces, the houses were knocked together as the fort was occupied with fewer officers during the nineteenth century. HISTORY: believed to have been rebuilt on the site of the late C17 officers' range, itself rebuilt in 1742, and is a good and rare example of Ordnance Board housing at this time. It is also of interest for its use of the terrace plan for providing officers' lodgings. Part of one of the finest and most complete late C17 forts in England, it is listed as a free-standing building independent from the Scheduled fortifications and attached structures. (Saunders A: Fortress Britain: Liphook: 1989-: 76; Saunders A: Tilbury Fort, English Heritage Guide: London: 1985-:12,25).

Listing NGR: TQ6515475336