Hms Temeraire, Old Gymnasium, Now Squash Courts

HMS Temeraire, Old Gymnasium, now serves as squash courts. This building, constructed between 1860 and 1865, was originally an army physical training and drill hall. It suffered fire damage in the 1970s but was restored and converted for its current use between 1984 and 1986. The structure is made of yellow brick in Flemish bond and features a replacement slate roof.

The building is one storey high and has a gallery across the south end, with a layout of 1:8 x 3 bays. It has a chamfered plinth and rusticated pilaster strips at the corners, which support open pediments on the gable ends. Round-arched recesses contain round-arched windows with metal glazing bars from the 1980s, replicating earlier designs, and feature stone sills and a double impost band. The eaves are stepped and dentilled, and there are ashlar kneelers at the brick gable coping. The west and east elevations have windows arranged in a pattern of 2:4:2. The north elevation includes three blind window openings, with a door inserted in the left one, and three pointed-headed niches above. The south elevation has a lower gabled projection with flat-roofed side wings. A round-arched recess contains a segmental-arched doorway with a double door and overlight, flanked by round-arched windows, with a stepped plat band and similar windows in the side wings, which have blocking courses and a ridge stack.

Inside, at the south end, there is a three-bay round-arched arcade at gallery level supported by two iron columns with stone imposts at the ends, and a blocked roundel in the gable. The roof structure dates from the 1980s. This building was erected on the site of former town defences that were abandoned, and it appears on the first Ordnance Survey Map from 1865/70.