Former C18 barrack block, Kitchener Barracks

MATERIALS: pale red brick laid in Flemish bond with red brick and stone dressings. Slate pitched roof.

PLAN: the block is oriented north-south and located at the north-west corner of the parade ground. Two-storeys plus basement, double depth plan. The C21 extension is to the north (not of special interest)

EXTERIOR: the original building is four bays in length with two gable stacks on the western side. The C21 extension, built in a matching style, and providing an additional three bays to the length, is not of special interest. Two-storey front (east) elevation, two storeys and basement at the rear (west) due to the slope of the land. The three surviving elevations have a brick plat band and a cornice band, on the front and rear elevations beneath a brick blocking course, which has been rebuilt to the front with a stone/concrete coping. Fenestration is of hornless six-over-six pane timber sashes in square openings with rubbed brick lintels and stone sills, and with paired lights to the south end.

The entrance to the original block is via a doorway in the second bay of the east elevation. Although this door appears in photographs from the 1870s, it was probably originally a window, the entrance being on the western side of the building, reached via a flight of steps over the basement level. This arrangement can be seen on photographs of other buildings on the site, now demolished, and evidence of the stairs and the replacement of the door with the current window (in the third bay) can be seen in the fabric of the building.

The south gable survives, altered by the removal of the eastern stack, as presumably does the original north gable wall adjoining the extension (visible above roof level), but the building has been re-roofed. The east elevation has a single reconstructed dormer. The eastern parapet is of different brickwork and appears to have been rebuilt, possibly when the two eastern stacks were removed.

INTERIOR: the interior has been completely modernised and no original features survive. The position of the stair has been altered as in its current position it would have partially blocked the original west entrance.

The basement consists of two separate chambers entered at ground level in the western elevation. In the southern chamber the brick floor and arches in the walls survive but the joists supporting the ground floor are replacements. The northern chamber was not inspected.