Former Anson Barrack

The former Anson Barrack, now offices and laboratories, was constructed around 1902 by Sir Henry Pilkington. It is an example of Free Edwardian Baroque architecture and is built of red brick with Portland stone dressings, brick stacks, and a slate cross-gabled roof.

The building has a single-depth, axial plan and is three storeys high, with attics to the end cross ranges, spanning 25 bays. The symmetrical facade features a plinth, banded rustication to the ground floor, an impost band on the second floor, which becomes a corniced frieze on the end gables, and a modillion eaves cornice. The eight-bay intermediate ranges are divided by shallow paired lateral stacks to the first and second floors, with a central downpipe. The three-bay end gables have clasping pilaster strips, scrolled ends to the raking coping, and thin lateral stacks flanking the central windows, which lead to a tall gable stack with a central rib. A deep, full-height central canted bay is also present. Segmental-arched 6/6-pane sash windows are present throughout, with large split keystones to the ground and first floors, brick and stone voussoirs to the second floor. Ground-floor windows in the intermediate sections are wider, featuring side lights.

Return gables feature an outer blind bay, with a central porch containing blocked Tuscan columns supporting an entablature bearing the name "ANSON" in raised letters, topped by a segmental pediment, and a half-glazed double door. Above the door is a bay with an entablature and parapet, containing paired 4/4-pane sashes in a keyed architrave, and further 4/4-pane sashes to the sides. Above this, a round-arched 8/8-pane sash is set forward from the cornice, above a cartouche with flanking fish.

The rear elevations are simpler, with square latrine towers at each end, each with a pyramidal roof and connected to the barracks by a ground-floor arch and a one-light range above. Good cast-iron hoppers and square downpipes are present. Roofs have banded ridge and lateral stacks, some of which have been truncated, along with late 20th-century dormer louvres and air conditioning units.

Internally, the building features plain, axial corridors and stairs in the end and central projecting sections.

The building was one of four matching barracks at the former HMS Pembroke, and was designed as part of a carefully planned group with the Officer's Mess (Pasley Road), Captain's House (Central Avenue), Motor Department (North Road), and other ancillary buildings.