Officers Mess And Commandants House Royal Army Medical College Officers Mess And Commandants House, Royal Army Medical Corps

Officers' Mess and Commandant's House, Royal Army Medical Corps

This Officers' Mess and Commandant's House for the Royal Army Medical Corps was built between 1904 and 1907 to designs by J.H.T Wood and W. Ainslie. It stands on Millbank near the Tate Gallery, which had been built on the former Penitentiary site just a few years before.

The building is constructed of brick with red brick and Portland stone dressings and horizontal banding. The basement and angle quoins are of grey granite, the eaves cornice is Westmorland slate, and the roof is covered in Westmorland slate. Tall brick chimney stacks with stone banding rise from the structure.

The plan is broadly symmetrical, with the commandant's house located in a north-east wing connected by an axial corridor to a similar north-west wing, each with projecting outer wings facing the Royal Army Medical College. The south-east-facing range contains the principal mess rooms at upper ground-floor level, which step progressively forward around a south garden area towards the river.

The building presents a prominent composition in the French Renaissance style, stepped forward towards Millbank. The principal elevation facing Millbank comprises two storeys with a full basement and an attic storey lit by a Mansard roof. A central three-bay Ionic frontispiece crowned by a balustrade forms the centrepiece, with upper sashes of six-over-six panes and lower arched windows lighting the staircase and landing. This is flanked by three-bay sides. Keyed segmental-arched basement windows sit in plain stone surrounds. The upper ground floor features tall mullioned and transomed windows with tall cross windows (small-paned casements above the transom) set under segmental canopies. The second floor has twelve-over-twelve-pane sashes in shouldered stone architraves, with matching sashes in flat-roofed dormer windows to the centre and segmental-pedimented dormers to the sides. A projecting stone first-floor bay window occupies the right-hand corner next to Atterbury Street, with a matching bay window on the corner itself, each decorated with a swag beneath a small open segmental pediment.

The other elevations follow a similar style. The south side features a stone bay window with cross windows to the Ante-Room set in Gibbs surrounds articulated by pilasters rising to a balustrade. The westernmost range facing south-east has a ground-floor bay window and upper two floors articulated by red brick pilasters with sashes set in red brick surrounds alternating with stone voussoirs. The Atterbury Street elevation, three storeys high, is composed around a south-east-facing garden court. The central two bays project forward with ground-floor windows recessed in tall stone arches that carry the upper storeys, articulated by swagged red brick pilasters and Venetian windows to the ground floor.

The Commandant's House features tripartite ground-floor windows set in Gibbsian surrounds linked by broken segmental pediments to a bold string course. A doorway with an open pediment set on Ionic columns appears on the left of the north elevation. The upper storeys are articulated by similar red brick pilasters lit by sashes in shouldered surrounds. The north-west elevation facing the Royal Army Medical College is plain.

The interior is generally plain except for the mess rooms on the upper ground floor, which are distinguished by striking applications of late-17th-century-style panelling and plasterwork in the principal rooms. Stone chimneypieces are present, and the mess room features a bowed balustrade to a gallery linked to the ante-room by folding doors. A fine staircase with turned balusters and carved detail rises through the building.

The building was constructed to provide accommodation for the commandant, 76 officers, and associated mess rooms in conjunction with the creation of the Royal Army Medical College.