Royal Marine Barracks Officers Mess

PLYMOUTH

SX4653NW DURNFORD STREET, Stonehouse 740-1/65/780 (East side) 01/05/75 Royal Marine Barracks: Officer's Mess

GV II*

Formerly known as: N & E Blocks, Officers Mess, Dining Hall & Single Officer's Accom. DURNFORD STREET Stonehouse, R M Barracks. Officer's mess, dining hall, ante room, galley and courtyard at Marines barracks. 1779-85, built for the Board of Ordnance by Messrs Templer & Parlby. Largely rebuilt since; library and lavatories added 1818, mess and music room 1859, courtyard glazed over 1860. MATERIALS: Plymouth limestone rubble with limestone dressings, part rendered; dry slate hipped roof behind coped parapet over band; dressed stone stack on the right and central slightly outbuilt lateral stack. PLAN: single-depth plan mess, music and ante room with courtyard and kitchens to W. EXTERIOR: 2 storey, 5-window range dining room; lower 2-storey, 2-window ante room; 3 storey, 3-window music room and taller 4-storey 2-window range at N end. The lower storey forms a semi-basement below a plat band. Dining room with window in the central lateral stack, one of 5 tall round-arched 1st-floor windows with plain architraves and horned copies of original hornless sashes with glazing bars and spoked fanlight heads. 3 small basement windows and doorway with segmental heads. W elevation is a similar 5-window range and there are 3 similar but blind round-arched windows to S end. Ante-room has plat and cornice bands, parapet, and small ground-floor windows, with 6/6-pane sashes to first floor. Music room has central doorway with side lights, below a Venetian window; 6/6-pane ground-floor sashes each side, and small 3/3-pane second floor sashes; end gables with stacks. N end block has left hand doorway, single first floor Venetian window and 6/6-pane sashes above. Doorways and windows have plain flat surrounds. The parade ground side has a glazed roof to the former courtyard. INTERIOR: dining room panelled to dado, with deep coved cornice and ceiling roundels, a large pedimented doorway at the end of the hall with double 10-panel doors. A similar decoration to the ante room and music room, probably copied from original decoration after it was destroyed in the Blitz.

Former galley to the SW has a C19 king post roof. Courtyard with c1860 arched cast-iron trusses to glazed hipped roof; mid C20 stair. HISTORY: originally the site of officer's accommodation, though much rebuilt early C19. The sections to the N probably include parts of the original walls. Barracks were built for the Marine regiments, formed in 1755, at Chatham, Portsmouth and Devonport, but this is the only one to have survived. Stonehouse is the oldest and most important barracks in England not forming part of a fortification, a very rare example of C18 planning, and a complete complex of great historic value. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 655).

Listing NGR: SX4643853969