Royal Marine Barracks Officers Mess

The Royal Marine Barracks Officers Mess, located on Durnford Street in Stonehouse, Plymouth, was built between 1779 and 1785 by the Board of Ordnance, using designs by Messrs Templer & Parlby. The building has undergone significant rebuilding and alteration throughout its history, with additions including a library and lavatories in 1818, a mess and music room in 1859, and the glazing of the courtyard in 1860.

The building is constructed primarily of Plymouth limestone rubble with limestone dressings, and has a dry slate hipped roof finished with a coped parapet. The building's layout consists of a single-depth mess area, a music room, an ante room, kitchens to the west, and a courtyard. The front elevation presents a five-window range to the dining room, a lower two-window range for the ante room, a three-window range for the music room, and a taller four-window range at the north end. The lower storey functions as a semi-basement. The dining room features tall round-arched windows with plain architraves and horned sash windows with glazing bars and spoked fanlight heads, while the music room includes a central doorway below a Venetian window.

Inside, the dining room is panelled to dado height, with a coved cornice and ceiling roundels. A large, pedimented doorway leads from the hall, complemented by similar decoration in the ante room and music room, replicating original details lost in wartime. A former galley to the southwest retains a 19th-century king post roof. The courtyard is now roofed with arched cast-iron trusses supporting a glazed hipped roof, with a mid-20th century staircase within. Originally built as officer’s accommodation, the northern sections incorporate elements of the original walls. Originally part of a larger complex of barracks established in 1755 at Chatham, Portsmouth and Devonport, this is the sole survivor and represents a rare example of 18th-century barracks planning and a complete complex of considerable historical value, not forming part of a fortification.