Barrack Block, Maker Heights Barracks

SX 45 SW MAKER WITH RAME MOUNT EDGECOMBE

1551-0/6/10002 Barrack block, Maker Heights barracks

GV II*

Infantry barrack block; later used by social services; disused. 1804-08, by the Ordnance Board; upper floor rebuilt 1859-60. Rubble with brick and granite dressings, rendered later to the front and ends, ridge stacks truncated, with slate hipped roof PLAN: I-shaped plan with double-depth officers' quarters to the South end, 3 single-depth barrack rooms to each floor. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 3:8:3-window range. A symmetrical front with the end sections set forward, with 2 ashlar porches 6 bays from the ends with pilasters, cornice, and blocking course, the left-hand one back-to-back, with gun slits and openings to sides; horned 6/6 pane sashes boarded at time of survey (1995), the windows to the officers' end have label moulds. 3-window S-return has a 2-storey porch and label moulds. North end has a doorway and external stair. Unrendered rear with more pronounced end projections, and a central external stair of granite treads, formerly with iron rails, with 2 opposing flights joining to one up to later brick platform. INTERIOR: officers' section, not accessible from the main range, has an axial corridor with a stair flight from the entrance hall with uncut string, column newel and stick balusters, a 4-centred fanlight at the end of the hall, and rooms with cast-iron fire surrounds with pulvinated frieze and shelf above, panelled doors and shutters. The central section has 3 barrack rooms with king post roofs and tiled fire surrounds, with some simple timber fittings. The North end double depth with a large fireplace in the party wall, possibly later. HISTORY: A typical though now rare C18 plan, in which officers and men shared the same range. Originally with timber and tile-hung upper storey. Maker was a barracks for over 200 infantry to protect the Heights overlooking Devonport Dockyard, for a garrison manning the line of 1782 redoubts Nos 1-4 (SAM). It was built as part of an extended building campaign during the Revolutionary War, to protect Devonport Dockyard. This is the most complete and unaltered example in England of a small garrison barracks from this significant period, and includes many of the ancillary buildings within a defensible site. (Exeter Archaeology Report: Pye A: Maker Barracks: 1994-; Transactions of Devon Association for Advancement of Science: Breihan J. Barracks in Devon during the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars: 1990-)

Listing NGR: SX4334551282