Former Weedon Barracks, East Blast House Of Series Of Four In Magazine Enclosure

This building is a blast house, constructed between 1807 and 1811. It is part of a complex of former Weedon Barracks, located within a magazine enclosure. The structure is built of red brick in a Flemish bond pattern, featuring gauged brick arches and dentilled eaves to the side walls. Stone cappings are present on the roof kneelers, and the roof itself is slate.

The building has a rectangular plan, aligned north-south. Originally, the central blast house was filled with earth and was flanked by a small office and Shifting Room at each end, for changing into specialist clothing required for working within the magazines. The northern sections of these flanking rooms have been demolished, while the southern sections remain.

The south-facing gables feature segmental arches above the central doorway and flanking windows. The original doorway was surrounded by a beaded 6-panel door, and the windows were 6/6-pane sashes. The east elevation of the blast house has elliptical arches over two sentry boxes, facing the Storehouse Enclosure.

The interior of the blast house originally had an earth-filled core and retains a pegged king post roof. The interior of the office and Shifting Rooms were originally finished with boarded or panelled walls.

This cluster of magazines forms a unique planned military-industrial complex, incorporating a defensible transport system and surrounding walls. While the individual magazine structures are smaller than the late 18th-century example at Priddy’s Hard near Portsmouth, they were unmatched as a group until the traverses at Bull Point, Plymouth, were built in the 1850s. Catenary arches were initially used at Tipnor in the 1790s, and later employed at Colonel D'Arcy's magazine at Upnor. The design incorporating traverses is highly innovative, with earth (sometimes brick-faced) blast walls becoming a defining element of magazine complexes, and here uniquely assuming an architectural form. Drawings of 1816 in the Royal Engineers Library (W140 (D38)), and later plans and drawings, provide further detail.

Further information about the site can be found in the description of Storehouse No 2.