Block One (Former Soldiers' Quarters) Bull Point Barracks

740-1/0/10042 FOULSTON AVENUE 22-JUN-04 St Budeaux (South side) Block One (former soldiers' quarters), Bull Point Training Centre

GV II Soldiers' quarters within fort; now training centre. 1840s. English bond red brick with stone plinth, rendered front and sides, with hipped slate roofs.

PLAN: Double-depth plan with entrance stairs.

EXTERIOR: 2 storey; 12-window range. Rubbed brick flat arches to doorways with mid-C20 doors and blocked overlights 3 windows in from the ends, and windows with horned 6/6-pane sashes. 3-window right-hand end with a central doorway and 6-pane overlight, the windows toward the front are blind. 12-window rear has smaller 4/4-pane sashes corresponding to the stairs.

INTERIOR: refitted as offices, retaining some original joinery and dog-leg stairs.

HISTORY: this defensible barracks was built for the guard of the nearby Bull Point ordnance yard, which was erected for the Ordnance Board between 1851 and 1855, and to protect the northern approaches of Devonport Dockyard from invasion. This is a very complete and unaltered example of a defensible barracks of the type built in the 1840s and 50s, and is the only barracks built around Devonport for the defence of the Dockyard which still remains. The closest example of such a defensible barracks is located close to the dockyard at Pembroke in Wales, the 'police barracks' in the industrial north of England having two survivals (Fulwood Barracks, Preston, and Hillsborough Barracks, Sheffield) which also retain bastioned but less defensible walls.