Foxs Gymnasium

ALDERSHOT SU 85 SE QUEEN'S AVENUE (South East side) 991-0/2156 Fox's Gymnasium 20.8.79

GV II

Gymnasium. 1894, for Colonel Fox of the Army Gymnastic Staff; extended mid C20. Brick with slate roof. Rectangular plan with front office and N side changing rooms. EXTERIOR: single-storey; 5-bay gable and 19-bay sides. Gables have stepped corbelled brackets, and round-arched openings. Ends articulated by buttresses between sunken bays, the entrance gable has a porch with matching gable with round-arched entrance to recessed door, round-arched windows rising with the eaves, and a central oculus, the rear gable has 4 round-arched windows and a left-hand round-arched door. N side has end and central projecting gabled porches with clasping buttresses and eaves corbels, as the ends: the central porch has a round-arched doorway with splayed sides and double doors and small flanking lights beneath an oculus, end gables with 3 ground-floor and a first-floor Venetian window, and parapeted linking ranges with 6 round-arched windows; metal-framed windows. Opposite side articulated by deep buttresses, with small round-arched lights, with a central gabled porch. Front gable and rear end of N side have mid C20 single-storey extensions. Roof has large ridge lantern. INTERIOR: has front offices and side changing rooms, balcony to entrance end on cast-iron columns, and wide, light wrought-iron trusses with paired struts and curved bottom tie. HISTORY: built for the Army Gymnastic Staff, founded in 1860, as part of the rebuilding of the first temporary camps. The first of 3 similar gyms at Aldershot including the Maida Gym (qv), the second generation of army gyms, built to develop gymnastics to improve the condition of the soldiers. (Oldfield E A L: Army Gymnastic Staff- 1952-: 5; Childerhouse T: Military Aldershot, the first fifty years: London: 1990-).

Listing NGR: SU8596151712