Drill Hall Arts Centre And Attached Railings

CAMDEN

TQ2981NE CHENIES STREET 798-1/99/203 (South side) 10/10/97 No.16 Drill Hall Arts Centre and attached railings

GV II

Drill hall, now an arts centre. 1882-3. By Samuel Knight. For the Bloomsbury Rifles. Red brick with sandstone dressings and continuous sill strings. Tiled roof with central gable. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys and basement. 3-window symmetrical facade with attached, taller, battlemented entrance tower to left. Four-centred entrance arch with a hood mould having carved Burgesian crowned lion label-stops and rose and riband spandrels. Above, a 3-light transom and mullion oriel window. 2nd floor, narrow tower window with over-panel depicting the hanging horn, symbol of the Rifle Brigade (to which the Bloomsbury Rifles was affiliated). Above this, 3 shields portraying, from left to right, the arms of the Duke of Bedford (the ground landlord), the royal arms and those of the county of Middlesex. To right, 3-light transom and mullion windows with gauged brick flat-arch heads, the ground and 1st floor having hood moulds with label stops in the form of carved heads; those to ground floor being moustached volunteers' heads. Central 2nd floor window pointed with hood mould and gable. INTERIOR: survives largely intact with a stair having turned rails. Drill hall to rear (now a theatre) with metal trussed roof and glazed lantern running the full length of the room; originally with a small stage to the south, now enclosed. The present bar was the mess room and has a gothic chimney-piece with sunken quatrefoils. 1st floor officers' mess with a good Gothic chimney-piece of Caen stone, enriched with a castellated canopy and the arms of commanding officers of the regiment; ceiling and walls panelled with diagonally-set deal planks. Adjoining small room with oriel window was the colonel's room; also with a Gothic fireplace and panelling and more ornate fittings. A 2nd floor former billiard room, above the officers' mess, with a chimney-piece similar to that in the ground floor mess. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron railings with urn finials to areas. HISTORICAL NOTE: rifle volunteer corps sprung up in 1859-60 as a popular response to the perceived threat of invasion from France. The volunteer units were raised principally from the

lower middle and upper working classes on a local basis. Patriotic in origin, they were part military forerunners of the Territorial Army and part semi-sporting outfits which offered comradeship with organised outdoor leisure activities and exotic uniforms. None saw action until the Boer War. The Bloomsbury Rifles were founded in 1859 by Thomas Hughes, whose Tom Brown's Schooldays had been published the previous year. The drill hall, necessary for both military practice and social intercourse was funded by the commanding officer, Lieut-Col. Richards; Knight, the architect, had a practice at Cornhill and was a captain in the regiment.

Listing NGR: TQ2965981847