Barrack block A, Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)

This is a former barrack block, built between 1874 and 1875 as part of the Royal Artillery Barracks, also known as Le Cateau Barracks, in Colchester. The design was by Lieutenant General Charles Brisbane Ewart RE, who was Deputy Director of Works for Barracks at the War Office.

The building is constructed of red brick with yellow brick bands and stone lintels, with a slate roof and brick ridge stacks. It has a rectangular, single-depth plan, incorporating stores and officers' stables at the corners.

The exterior is two storeys with a 6:4:6-window range. The front and rear elevations are similar, featuring coped end gables and patterned brick eaves. Projecting two-window single-storey blocks are positioned at each end, with a central pediment gable. Square stable windows run along the north side, with central segmental-arched double doors. The end blocks have a door on the left and a window on the right, and include a louvred oculus. The barrack rooms above have 4/4-pane sash windows. The south side features a band of patterned brick below the stable windows and three doorways separated by windows leading to the central gable. The upper floor is set back to create a balcony between the gable and end blocks, with diagonal iron railings.

The stables’ interior is divided into two sections with a central aisle between cast-iron posts, dividing the stalls which support a brick jack-arch floor with ties between the joists. Office and store rooms are located at each end. A central imperial stair leads to the 22-man barrack rooms on either side of the NCO’s room.

Le Cateau Barracks represents the last surviving example of a new layout of cavalry barracks developed at Aldershot in the 1850s. It was an advanced design for the time, being a fireproof building with enhanced ventilation for the men, despite using a traditional plan of men’s rooms above stables. It is part of a group of barracks buildings and was the second permanent barracks built at Colchester, following the adjoining Cavalry Barracks constructed between 1862 and 1864.