Front Range, St Vincent School

GOSPORT SU 6100 FORTON ROAD (North side) 1137-0/5/47 Front range, St Vincent School 25.2.71

GV II

Barracks entrance gateway, guard house, offices and school; now college. 1847, by Captain H James, RE. Brick with limestone dressings and rubbed brick headers, brick ridge stacks and slate hipped roof. Single-depth axial plan with central clock tower gateway. EXTERIOR: Single storey; 18:7:15-window range. Near symmetrical range with plinth, cornice and parapet. Gateway has a tall round archway with rusticated jambs, voussoirs and scrolled key, impost band, cornice and clock, with a square belcote with louvred round-arched openings and ogee hipped roof with ball finial on scrolled supports; a round wicket archway connects with pedimented guard houses each side with round-arched 6/6-pane sashes within matching arched recesses, outer quadrant walls curve forward, a ball finial on the front corner, and outer front sections. Flanking ranges have rubbed brick heads to 6/6-pane sashes with rectangular sunken panels above, with 3-bay sections set forward 4 bays from the centre with a raised recessed panel in the parapet, and windows set within an arcade of round-arched recesses. 7-bay left-hand former school has a raised glazed ridge lantern. Similar rear has pedimented guard houses set forward, with a verandah on cast-iron posts to the inner sides facing the archway, and half-glazed mid C20 doors. Former school has a 5-bay glazed raking roof on iron brackets, and the opposite end has a similar 9-bay glazed verandah on cast-iron posts. INTERIOR: Altered, without special features. HISTORY: Built as part of Forton Royal Marines barracks, late HMS St Vincent, with the integrated front range of left-hand school, for children of marines, and school master's house, central guard houses and right-hand adjudant's and commandant's offices fronting the parade ground. An advanced barrack design, including one of the earliest surviving barracks schools, by a leading engineer architect with major works in the Portsmouth dockyard, pre-dating the post Crimean War reforms. (SAVE Britain's Heritage: Deserted Bastions, Historic Naval and Military Architecture: London: 1993-: 181; Professional Papers of the Royal Marines: Captain H James RE: Additions at Forton to accommodate the Portsmouth Division: Chatham: 1851-: 101-113).

Listing NGR: SU6140100217