Main Building, Royal Military Academy

MAIN BUILDING, ROYAL MILITARY ACADEMY

Military academy, library, barracks, offices and mess, now library and offices. Built 1805–8 by James Wyatt, Surveyor General, extended 1862, partly rebuilt after 1873 fire, and circa 1902. Brown and red Flemish bond brick with brown stucco and Portland stone dressing, brick stacks, and slate hipped roofs. Gothick style with Tudor Revival additions.

The building comprises three symmetrical courtyards with a central double-depth square library and flanking offices. Double-depth blocks were added in 1862, all connected by arcades. A rear central dining hall and early 20th-century officers' mess complete the complex, with 1862 side ranges of cadets' quarters extending to the rear.

The main front elevation is two storeys with a symmetrical 3:4:9:8:6:8:9:4:3-window arrangement. Long symmetrical front with the central library and flanking blocks connected by single-storey arcades, matching front and rear elevations. The library has a low plinth with roll moulding and rolltop coping to the parapet, raised to the centre where a clock is positioned. Three-storey octagonal corner towers with crenellated parapets and leaded ogee domes with finials are matched by square stair towers at the centre of each side. Ground-floor flat-headed windows feature label moulds and chamfered stucco surrounds with 4/4-pane sashes and wide central mullions. First-floor windows are 2-centre arched 3/2-pane sashes with Tudor-arched top lights. The corner towers have windows to alternate faces and small square lights to the top floor.

The main entrance is set in a projecting crenellated surround with tall flanking buttresses. The Tudor-arched doorway has splayed reveals and quatrefoils in the spandrels, with 2-centre arched 4-light overlights and side lights, and double panelled doors. The rear elevation features a small ground-floor sundial at the centre and a wrought-iron lamp bracket.

The flanking blocks match the library's plinth and crenellated parapet with flat-headed ground- and first-floor windows. The middle 3-window range projects forward and adds a third storey with square casements. Corners are marked by thin octagonal stucco turrets with loops. Doorways to the centre of all three sections have projecting ashlar dwarf walls with steps up to double 4-panel doors with 6/6-pane overlights; the central doorway is topped by a curved iron lamp bracket and lamp.

Connecting passages between the front blocks have crenellated stucco fronts with open Tudor arches. The outer passages are glazed with Perpendicular Gothic glazing bars.

To the rear of the library is an enclosed courtyard with walls extending back to form a square, bounded by crenellated 3-storey towers with flat-headed windows matching the flanking blocks. Five-bay Tudor-arched arcades connect these towers, with mid-20th-century infill on the north side. A central dining hall occupies the courtyard, featuring angle buttresses, a 4-light 2-centre arched east window with mid-20th-century tracery, and a square moulded stack rising from the top of the coped gable. Five-bay sides have 2-centre arched windows with 20th-century y-tracery.

The bright red brick 1862 corner blocks each have crenellated parapets and a projecting full-height porch with full-height canted bay and Tudor-arched doorway. Labels and rendered surrounds frame cross windows with plate-glass casements. Wide 7-light mullion and transom windows to each side have Tudor-arched top lights.

To the rear extend symmetrical 18-bay side ranges with plinth and crenellated parapet, projecting approximately 3 storeys. Two-window end blocks have taller canted turrets to the inner sides with doorways having canted lintels. Similar paired 1-window central sections flank a central archway beneath a large stair light. Approximately 2-storey ranges between contain 2 doorways with label moulds and raised surrounds to openings, doors with strap hinges and overlights.

A 2-storey porch on the north end follows the fenestration pattern of the front block. The rear range includes lower 1808 buildings housing mess facilities, dated 1901 and 1902 with Royal Artillery coats of arms, arranged around a small courtyard.

The central library interior includes a panelled front lobby and good cantilevered stone Imperial stairs with cast-iron brackets in the side stair towers. Fine bookcases feature 4-centre arches, banded columns and crenellated cresting. Two good marble fireplaces have octagonal columns and foliate capitals. The dining hall has a north-end fireplace and a late 19th-century hammer-beam roof.

The flanking blocks contain transverse dogleg stairs with column newels and stick balusters. Front arcades have mock vaulted ceilings. The 1862 corner blocks feature former classrooms with coffered plaster ceilings and good grey marble fireplaces to ground and first floors. Central lateral cantilevered stone stairs have decorated cast-iron balusters and arched brackets to the landing. The 1901 mess rooms have panelled walls.

The Academy was established for gunnery cadets, originally within Woolwich Arsenal, with students moving to this purpose-built location in 1808. Like Wyatt's Fonthill Abbey, the building was modelled on the Tower of London and originally used artificial stone, with the plan and many original details remaining little altered. The original complex included classrooms above the central library and offices, ablution blocks on each side, quarters in the front flanking blocks, gardens in the courtyards behind, and racquet courts. These latter features were replaced by the 1862 quarters and classrooms.

An outstanding example of Wyatt's Gothick style and one of the most important pieces of military architecture in the country.