Former Officers Quarters The Garden Village

The Former Officers' Quarters at the Garden Village, previously known as Alma Barracks, is a building constructed between 1874 and 1877, designed by Major H.C. Seddon of the Royal Engineers for the War Office. It has been converted into a retirement home between 1980 and 1990. The structure is made of squared stone with ashlar dressings, featuring shouldered stone ridge and gable stacks, and a slate hipped and cross-gabled roof. It has a double-depth axial L-shaped plan and stands two storeys tall with a ten-window range.

The exterior is asymmetrical, showcasing three unevenly spaced projecting coped gables. To the left of the left-hand gable is a deep single-storey canted mess room bay, while to the right is an open ashlar porch with a hipped roof and lead finial, supported by columns with stiff leaf capitals and round-arched openings. The entrance features half-glazed double doors. The bays and gables include paired and three-light windows with narrow segmental-arched transom lights and 4/4-pane sashes, most of which have been replaced by plate-glass sashes. The outer gables have three-light first-floor windows beneath a two-centre arched tympanum, and the windows between the gables, as well as those on the sides and rear, have flat heads.

Inside, the building contains an axial passage, an entrance hall with a dogleg stair, and original joinery and plaster decoration. Historically, this building was constructed for the accommodation, mess, and administration of the Richmond Localisation Depot, part of the Cardwell Reforms aimed at redistributing infantry barracks across the country to foster local connections and aid recruitment. This design is standard and closely resembles a brick version at Brock Barracks in Reading. Notably, the barracks were unique for being built of stone and lacking the typical keep. The officers' quarters are recognized as the most representative and least altered part of the former barracks.