Former Sandes Soldiers' Home, Cattterick Garrison

This charity welfare centre for soldiers was built in 1928 for Sandes Soldiers' Homes by the architects Young and Mackenzie, with construction undertaken by McLaughlin and Harvey using contractors and craftsmen from Ulster.

Construction and Materials

The building employs fireproofed steel frame construction faced in red brick with extensive Bewerley stone dressings. The roof is covered in Buttermere slate with cast iron rainwater goods. Internally, there is extensive use of decorative plasterwork and teak joinery fitted with brass fittings. The staircases feature terrazzo treads and decorative ironwork.

Layout

The interior is complex and interconnected, with multiple front entrances designed to provide swift access to the building's various original facilities.

Exterior

Front (South) Elevation

The building's long south elevation divides into four sections separated by three main entrances. Each section has a slightly different architectural treatment, but all are linked through consistent materials and architectural details. These four divisions make positive use of the sloping site, with horizontal features acknowledging the changing levels whilst unifying the elevation.

The westernmost first section is the most domestic in scale, resembling part of a country house and originally containing the library and other west-facing rooms. It forms a forward-projecting cross wing with the gable-end detailed like a large open-based pediment supported by very large, finely-carved teak console brackets. The pediment's tympanum is covered with hung slates. Below is a broad two-storey canted bay with stone ashlar surrounds to the windows, containing five sash windows with glazing bars to each floor. This section is unified with the second section by a first-floor stringcourse of moulded stone and a deeply oversailing eaves to the roof.

The second section, originally including a large games room, comprises six bays with an additional half-bay to the west end for an entrance serving the western two sections of the building. The entrance has a single door with a projecting stone porch supported by a carved stone bracket. Above this is an overlight set back within a segmentally arched opening with a keystone. The first-floor windows extend an extra pane upwards to the eaves compared to the first section and, apart from the single window to the entrance half-bay, are regularly arranged in pairs with central mullions. The ground-floor windows are much larger, with lower sills relative to the first section as well as being broader. Each is divided into three lights by mullions and further subdivided with glazing bars. These windows are linked by a sill band and are segmentally arched with keystones. The low-pitched roof has brick-built end stacks and a central stack rising from the rear pitch.

The third section of the elevation comprises eight bays framed by end chimneystacks, with the bays at the two ends being entrances and the ground floor of the other six bays forming the coffee/dining hall. The windows match those of the second section, except the first-floor windows are segmentally arched. This section steps down the hill from the west so that the ground-floor sill band continues the general line of the ground surface of the second section, with the first-floor window sills aligning with the first-floor stringcourse. The ground floor is set slightly forward to produce a shallow continuous balcony in front of the first-floor windows. The balcony has a low parapet of decorative brickwork rising from a stone stringcourse to a stone coping. The low-pitched roof is concealed behind a further brick parapet that rises from a moulded stone stringcourse to a moulded stone coping, which aligns with the eaves line of the second section. Linking the stringcourse to the coping are two large stone consoles, which originally framed a sign reading 'Sandes Soldiers' Home'.

The entrance bay on the west side of the third section, which also leads to the main stair hall, is built of stone ashlar, forming a two-storey ornate Baroque-style canted bay topped by a panelled stone parapet. The wide entrance has a modern replaced door, but retains its original decorative lintel and semi-circular fanlight with ornamented glazing bars. The entrance is flanked by engaged columns supporting an enriched scrolled pediment framing a cartouche.

The entrance bay on the east side of the third section breaks forward and is brick-built, except for the stone dressings that continue the banding, stringcourses and copings of the rest of the third section. The entrance is reached by an external set of steps and has double doors beneath a large monolithic lintel with carved decoration. Above this is an overlight with decorative leaded glazing flanking a timber louvre for an inserted ventilator.

With the falling ground surface, the fourth easternmost section—the former cinema, converted to a swimming pool in 1929—is of three tall storeys. A stone band marking the second floor is aligned with the first-floor parapet of the third section. The elevation is symmetrical, divided into three by brick pilasters, with a hipped roof topped by a ventilation turret with a swept pyramidal leaded roof. At the top of the central part of the elevation is an open-based pediment framing a stone cartouche. The pediment is supported by paired giant stone corbels that flank a second-floor loggia. This loggia takes the form of an unglazed, moulded stone-framed Venetian window, with the central section having a projecting stone balcony supported on carved stone brackets. To the first floor below are three window openings with keystoned brick flat arches and stone sills, the openings retaining original metal-framed windows with margin glazing. On the ground floor is a double-doored entrance beneath a keystoned wedge lintel. Flanking this middle bay are broad bays with two small, widely separated windows to each floor. The lower four windows to each side light staircases internally and are thus stepped in height. These windows have brick flat arches without keystones and also retain metal-framed windows.

West Elevation

This comprises six bays with a chimneystack at the north gable-end and two ridge stacks. The moulded stringcourse to the first floor continues from the south elevation. To the first floor is a three-bay loggia with very large openings featuring ornate-shaped timber brackets. To the ground floor is a blocked window opening and doorway. Other window openings are detailed in a similar way to various window openings to the front elevation and still retain their original timber sashes with glazing bars. Various pieces of modern equipment and cabling are attached to this elevation.

East Elevation

This is the side elevation of the former cinema/swimming pool. It comprises seven bays of pier and panel construction, with an additional lean-to bay at the north end (stage end). The elevation is divided into two: a slightly higher three-bay section to the south for the stairs and main balcony internally; and the four-bay hall with a run of large first-floor picture windows with oeil-de-boeuf windows above and two doorways below, now bricked up. The southern slightly taller section is mainly blind, but still retains its original openings with fittings, including the part-glazed double doors accessing the main stairs to the balcony. To the top of the central panel is a large copper sign with the embossed text 'Sandes' in white enamel, although this originally extended downwards with the additional text 'Soldiers' Home'.

Rear Elevation

The rear elevation is more utilitarian, but still features some stone dressings, such as a first-floor stringcourse to the western cross wing. It retains its chimneystacks and nearly all of its original openings complete with joinery. The altered openings are now internal within the rear yard that was roofed over in the mid-20th century.

Various modern features such as communications equipment, security lighting, cabling, modern ventilation and heating equipment, mainly found to the rear of the building, are present. The link corridor and the large modern building that this leads to, extending north from the former open yard, are not included in the listing, nor is a small flat-roofed extension adjacent to the flat-roofed extension at the east end of the former open yard forming a vehicle entrance.

Interior

Survival of original internal features is extensive throughout the building, including decorative plasterwork and high-quality joinery generally retaining original brass fittings. The main and secondary staircases, as well as the short flight between the main entrance and the coffee hall, are terrazzo with teak handrails and decorative iron balustrading incorporating curtail steps. Other staircases are enclosed between walls and have simpler brass handrails. The principal entrance lobby has an elaborate Classical decorative treatment in plasterwork including raised panels featuring festoons above the doorways to the former games room and coffee hall. The doors here are good quality replacements. The games room has a ceiling with decorative strapwork and rosettes now largely concealed by an inserted suspended ceiling. This decoration is also applied to the north wall flanking a pair of lunette windows that incorporate decorative leaded glazing, including stained glass. Similar windows may survive in the coffee hall, now boarded over. The former games room has a modern inserted raked floor and has been partly subdivided with modern stud partitions. The coffee hall retains decorative tile work, which has been overpainted. It also retains an original pair of part-glazed doors set in a doorcase with a frieze and cornice, all the joinery being teak. A modern canteen servery has been inserted. The former library at the west end has a later raised floor and a suspended ceiling, the latter concealing an original ornamented plaster ceiling. The former cinema/swimming pool also retains its decorative plasterwork, including that to the front of the main balcony. The side balconies have been removed and the northern balcony, which was access for the diving board, has been altered. It is not known if the swimming pool has been infilled or survives beneath later flooring. The rear service areas have undergone more internal alterations and include a modern kitchen and other modern equipment. The former open rear service yard has a light-weight mid-20th century roof of some interest. This rear yard space now includes modern inserted partitions and rooms and other features, such as an access ramp.

The decorative treatment to the first floor is simpler, but generally intact, incorporating some dados in addition to cornicing, with the most elaborate being the large room to the south-west corner. Doors to the bedrooms off the northern corridor are part glazed for borrowed light into the corridor, with leaded obscure and coloured glass. Fireplaces have been lost, although chimneybreasts remain.