Former Officers Quarters The Garden Village

RICHMOND NZ 10 SE GALLOWGATE (East side) 681-0/6/10000 Former Officer's quarters, the Garden Village

II

Formerly known as: Alma barracks GALLOWGATE. Officers' quarters and mess, now retirement home. 1874-7, designed at the War Office by Major HC Seddon RE; converted 1980-90. Squared stone with ashlar dressings, shouldered stone ridge and gable stacks and a slate hipped and cross-gabled roof. Double-depth axial L-shaped plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 10-window range. An asymmetrical range has 3 unevenly-spaced projecting coped gables, with a deep single-storey canted mess room bay to the left of the left-hand gable, and an open ashlar porch with hipped roof and lead finial to the right on columns with stiff leaf capitals to round-arched openings; the doorway has half-glazed double doors. Bay and gables have paired and 3-light windows with narrow segmental-arched transom lights and 4/4-pane sashes, mostly replaced by plate-glass sashes; the outer gables have 3-light first-floor windows under a 2-centre arched tympanum, and the windows between the gables and to the sides and rear have flat heads. INTERIOR: contains an axial passage, with an entrance hall dogleg stair, and original joinery and plaster decoration. HISTORY: built for officers' accommodation, mess and administration of the Richmond Localisation Depot, under the Cardwell Reforms. These redistributed infantry barracks around the country to encourage local connections and assist recruitment. A standard design, very similar to the brick example at Brock barracks, Reading (qv). The barracks was unusual in being built of stone, and not having the characteristic keep. The officers' quarters is included as the most representative and unaltered element from the former barracks. (SAVE Britain's Heritage.. Deserted Bastions: London: 1993-: 238; Watson Colonel Sir H M: History of the Corps of Royal Engineers: Chatham: 19.54-: 157-160).

Listing NGR: NZ1746401826