Sir John Moore Memorial Hall and Library, Somerset Barracks, Shorncliffe Camp

Sir John Moore Memorial Hall and Library, Somerset Barracks, Shorncliffe Camp

This memorial hall and library was built in 1915-16 and designed by Sir Aston Webb. It is a single-storey building of rectangular plan, oriented east to west, constructed of narrow red bricks laid in English bond with Portland stone used for window frames, sills, door surrounds and other dressings. The roof is covered in clay tiles. Doors are dark-stained timber and windows are steel casements, some galvanised and some not. Interior walls are plastered, except in the entrance lobby where brick is exposed.

The principal entrance faces south towards a small garden containing a statue of Sir John Moore, beyond which lies the Sir John Moore Plain, the large open space at the centre of Shorncliffe Camp. The east end of the building contains a small entrance lobby and reading room, with a single chimney stack that would have served this space, though the fireplace is now blocked. Stairs rise from the lobby to an open gallery above. The remainder of the building is occupied by a hall open to the roof. A small extension housing a WC was added to the east end after 1938.

The building has a deep pitched roof with overhanging sprocketed eaves. At the centre of the ridge sits a tapering square half-glazed cupola with a square domed roof, dressed in lead and topped with an iron weathercock. Low-level vents formed of stacked clay tiles appear on each elevation. The building comprises six bays divided by heavy vertical brick buttresses. The main entrance bay on the south elevation and the west end bays on the north and south elevations project beyond the building line and break through the eaves, terminating in stone-capped parapets with flat roofs behind.

The main entrance features a double-leaved door with a Tudor arch set in a chamfered stone surround, above which is the crest of Sir John Moore carved in deep relief, now significantly weathered. The west bays on the north and south elevations each contain a large six-light mullioned-and-transomed stained glass window, with a second two-light stained glass window on the west-facing cheek of each bay. Each remaining bay on these elevations has a three-light mullioned window set just below the eaves. On the north elevation, the second bay from the east has this pattern modified to include a secondary entrance comprising a half-glazed double door with a Tudor arch in a simple stone surround, with two small overlights and a larger single light to the right.

The east and west gable-end elevations feature bands of tiles laid flat in offset courses. The west end has a high-level oculus. The east end has two pairs of two-light mullioned windows lighting the former reading room and gallery. The small WC block matches the main building materials and is accessed via a door in the former reading room.

The interior of the hall is dominated by an unusual roof structure comprising steel king-post trusses with heavy arch-braced collars, between which are timber rafters with offset collars. At the west end stands a timber proscenium, its front edge featuring woven timber grilles interspersed with pairs of square downward-tapering columns. The west wall behind the proscenium bears numerous commemorative plaques, many from the two Catholic Churches at Shorncliffe, one now demolished and one (a listed building) now in secular use. The proscenium is lit by the large stained glass windows in the west end bays. Each of the 14 lights depicts either the coat of arms of a senior military figure or the insignia of a regiment associated with Sir John Moore's career.

Multi-light glazed doors to the east of the hall lead into the entrance lobby on the right and the former reading room on the left. The entrance lobby has a clay tile floor, with arches over the main entrance door, the door to the hall, the half-glazed door to the former reading room, and the radiator recess beneath the stair all formed of clay tiles laid flat in offset courses. A glazed screen with double doors forms an outer lobby between the lobby and main entrance. A stair with square and turned balusters rises to the gallery. The former reading room has a wood block floor laid in herringbone pattern. The gallery has a timber balustrade with square and turned balusters.