Royal Marine Barracks The Longroom

PLYMOUTH

SX4653 DURNFORD STREET, Stonehouse 740-1/66/785 (East side) 01/05/75 Royal Marine Barracks: The Longroom

GV II*

Assembly rooms, then mess, later infirmary, school, now gymnasium. 1760, officer's mess from 1805, school from 1818; extended slightly early C19. MATERIALS: red brick laid to Flemish bond with rusticated stone quoins; dry slate hipped roofs behind brick parapets with moulded stone cornices; brick stack towards left. Mid Georgian style. PLAN: rectangular plan with double-depth rear section; entrance hall to centre at either end. EXTERIOR: main block is 2 storeys over basement and 3-window range with mid-floor string; rear block is 3 storeys over basement and under same parapet level; 5:5-window range, the left-hand 2 bays of rear block a later extension. Original window openings have gauged brick arches over 6/6-pane sashes, later openings with segmental arches over similar sashes. Original symmetrical 3-window entrance front to right-hand return with moulded architraves to ground-floor window openings and central distyle Ionic pedimented porch with dentilled cornices and pulvinated frieze; round-arched doorway with fanlight. Rear end rendered with a C19 3-window entrance front including a central porch with round-arched doorway and blind niches to the sides, and windows altered mid C20. INTERIOR: has long room on each floor to main block with a lateral dogleg stair to the front; central axial early C19 open-well staircase in later part with stick balusters, ramped rails and turned newels; original joists to white-washed cellar. HISTORY: bought from the Corporation in 1805 for use as an officer's mess, but used as a school for children of NCOs when the officers moved to the rebuilt officer's mess (qv) in 1818. The rear was used as an infirmary from c1859, when the nearby surgeon's house was erected. A markedly similar composition to the 1761 Guildhall at Poole, Dorset. Stonehouse barracks was built between 1781-1783. Included for historic and architectural interest with the main part of the barracks complex, which is the oldest and most important group of barracks in England not forming part of a fortification. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 655).

Listing NGR: SX4651653804