Former North West Gunners Barracks (Building 11) Wyvern Barracks

SX 9391 871/15/10025

EXETER, TOPSHAM ROAD (North side), Former NW Gunners' Barracks (Building 11), Wyvern Barracks

GV II

Formerly known as: Topsham barracks TOPSHAM ROAD. Artillery gunners' barracks, now barracks and offices. 1806, by James Wyatt for the Ordnance Board. Rendered brick with slate hipped roof Single-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 2-storey; 7 -window range. Plain inner front to the former square with a doorway 3 windows from the W end with a plate-glass overlight and C20 door; 6/6-pane ground-floor and 8/8-pane first-floor sashes, earlier ones without horns; outer side similar. The brick inner return to the former main entrance has a central doorway with sashes either side and above and a C20 verandah. INTERIOR: altered mid C20; a dogleg stair leads from the entrance. HISTORY: one of a pair of barracks for RA gunner/drivers, with Building 1 (qv), which formed the S perimeter to the former Artillery barracks. Originally L-shaped with the officers' section flanking the entrance, now demolished. Although altered, included as part of the most complete small artillery barracks of the Napoleonic War, defining with the former Officers' range opposite (qv) the central parade square and the original layout of the barracks. (James Colonel H: Plan of Artillery barracks Exeter: 1813-1866; Proceedings of Devon Association for the Advancement of Science: Breihan Professor J: Army Barracks in Devon during the Revolutionary & Napoleonic War: 1990-: 150).

Listing NGR: SX9331691230