Officers Quarters And Mess, Brock Barracks

SU 67 SE READING OXFORD ROAD (south side) 934/16/10015 Officers' quarters and mess, Brock barracks

GV II

Officers' quarters and mess, now offices. 1877, designed at the War Office by Major HC Seddon, RE, supervising engineer Major Flint RE. Red brick with yellow brick bands, moulded brick heads and stone dressings; lateral and ridge stacks, left-hand end has octagonal shafts, the rest truncated, and tiled cross-gabled roof. Gothic Revival style. PLAN: single-depth axial L-shaped plan, and kitchens to the rear. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 10-window range. An asymmetrical range has 3 unevenly-spaced projecting coped gables, with a deep single-storey canted mess room bay to the left of the left-hand gable, and an open ashlar porch with hipped roof to the right, on round columns with stiff-leaf capitals to 2-centre arched openings; the inner doorway has double doors. Bay and gables have paired and 3-1ight windows with narrow segmental-arched transom lights and 2/2-panes sashes; the outer gables have 3-light first-floor windows under a 2-centre arched tympanum with patterned brick infill, and the windows in between the gables and to the sides and rear have flat heads to the ground floor and shouldered lintels to the first. The right-hand end has a hipped porch with tympana to the paired side windows. INTERIOR: has an entrance stair hall with a dogleg stair, rear axial passage to a right-hand end dogleg stair, tiled floors, with original joinery and plaster mouldings. HISTORY: built for officers' accommodation, mess and administration of the Reading Localisation depot. An example of a standard design as at the former Richmond depot, adapted by the local officer. The Cardwell reforms redistributed barracks around the country to encourage local connections, and assist recruitment. The officers' quarters was the best-appointed building in the depot, commanding the parade, and is included as a central part of, with Bodmin, one of the two most complete surviving depots. (Watson Colonel Sir HM: History of the Corps of Royal Engineers: Chatham: 1954-: 157-160).

Listing NGR: SU6932273739