Former Grenville Barrack

The former Grenville Barrack, now offices and laboratories, was built around 1902 by Sir Henry Pilkington. It is constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings, featuring brick gable and ridge stacks, lateral stacks, and a slate cross-gabled roof. The building exhibits a Free Edwardian Baroque style, with a single-depth axial plan.

The exterior is three storeys high, with attics to the end cross ranges, comprising a 25-bay range. It features a plinth, banded rustication to the ground floor, a plat band, a second-floor impost band that becomes a corniced frieze on the end gables, and a modillion eaves cornice. Intermediate ranges are divided by shallow paired lateral stacks to the first and second floors, with a central downpipe. End gables have clasping pilaster strips, scrolled ends to the raking coping, and thin lateral stacks flanking central windows, culminating in a tall gable stack with a central rib. A deep, full-height central canted bay is also present. The segmental-arched 6/6-pane sash windows have large split keystones to the ground and first floors, brick and stone voussoirs to the second; ground floor windows in the intermediate sections are wider, with side lights.

Return gables have an outer blind bay, a central porch with blocked Tuscan columns supporting an entablature bearing the name "GRENVILLE" in raised letters, a segmental pediment, and a half-glazed double door. Above the porch is a bay with entablature and parapet, paired 4/4-pane sashes in a keyed architrave, and further 4/4-pane sashes to the sides. A round-arched 8/8-pane sash with architrave and brackets to a round-arched pediment is positioned above, projecting from the cornice – it overlooks a cartouche with flanking fish.

The rear elevations are plainer and include square latrine towers at each end, featuring pyramidal roofs and connected to the barracks by a ground-floor arch and a single-light range above. The building showcases good cast-iron hoppers dated in the building and square downpipes. The roofs have banded ridge and lateral stacks, some of which have been truncated, with late 20th-century dormer louvres and air conditioning units.

The interior comprises plain axial corridors and stairs located in the end and central projecting sections.

Historically, the building was one of four matching barracks at the former HMS Pembroke and was part of a carefully planned group including the Officer's Mess, Captain’s House, Motor Depot (North Road), and other ancillary buildings.