Vimy Officers' Mess, Servants' Quarters, and Squash Courts, Catterick Garrison

This is an officers' mess completed in late 1925 or early 1926, built in a restrained Queen Anne style by Messrs Laing and Son of Carlisle. It includes associated servants' quarters and a squash racket court.

Construction and Materials

The building has a steel girder frame clad in brown/blue and orange/brown bricks laid in English bond, with contrasting red gauged brick lintels. Portland stone ashlar is used for the porch, ground-floor window surrounds, quoins, string course, and dressings. The windows are uPVC double-glazed units designed to resemble the original timber fenestration. The hipped roof is covered in Welsh slate with grey ridge tiles, and features slender brick chimneystacks with ashlar cornices and yellow terracotta chimney pots. Rainwater goods are a mixture of cast-iron and plastic. The ablution blocks have flat asphalted roofs.

The secondary steel fire escape and modern extractor equipment at the rear are not of special interest and are excluded from the listing.

Plan

The main building has an L-shaped plan with a three-storey structure aligned north-east to south-west. Single-storey domestic services at the rear form a courtyard.

Exterior

Front Elevation

The main south-east elevation is symmetrical with fifteen bays across three storeys. A continuous slightly projecting first-floor ashlar string course runs the width of the elevation, with flush alternating ashlar quoins at the corners and painted moulded eaves cornices with modillions.

The wider central bay projects forward from the wall line, with brick corners formed into lesenes or pilaster strips featuring stylised ashlar plinths and capitals that support a broken pediment created by deflecting the eaves cornice. At ground level, this bay has an ashlar Tuscan-style pedimented entrance porch raised on a low brick plinth. The broken pediment lacks a tympanum and rests on a carved architrave, lit by a suspended lantern attached to its soffit. The pediment is carried on a narrow cornice, frieze and architrave, supported by two Tuscan-style columns raised on a three-step podium. The main entrance has double half-glazed panelled timber doors with a semi-circular nine-light fanlight, set within an ashlar surround beneath a canted tripartite ashlar keystone. It is flanked on each side by a Tuscan-style pilaster and a tall narrow window with an ashlar drip mould and sill, set beneath a short side projection of the cornice.

The central bay is flanked on each side by seven brick-built bays raised on a brick plinth with ashlar dressings. Each ground-floor bay has a single tall multi-light segmented uPVC window set in an ashlar shouldered architrave with a tripartite keystone. The first and second floors of each bay have paired ten-light uPVC casement windows. Those on the first floor have flat gauged brick lintels with plain ashlar keystones, while those on the second floor lack keystones.

Side Elevations

The two-bay north-east elevation comprises a three-storey return bay of the main range with a single ground-floor window with a brick apron, and two windows on the first and second floors set beneath the hipped northern end of the main roof. The narrower single-bay side elevation of the flat-roofed northern ablutions block is attached to the rear with a similar appearance, though it is set back slightly and built of orange-coloured bricks. A single-storey, flat-roofed, two-by-three-bay former billiard room is attached to the rear of the ablutions block.

The south-west elevation comprises a one-and-a-half-bay return of the main elevation, with an attached secondary but near-contemporary single-storey, T-plan, flat-roofed bar extension that aligns with the internal ground-floor axial corridor. It has similar windows to the main elevation and one chamfered elevation adjacent to a double doorway with a bracketed flat canopy. The three-storey, four-bay, L-plan south wing is built in orange/brown bricks with a hipped slate-clad roof and is attached to the rear of the main range return. This wing has three windows per bay on the first and second floors. The floors are stepped down in height, resulting in narrower single ground-floor windows that lack ashlar architraves and keystones. The northern return of the south-west wing houses the kitchens, services, ablutions, and latrines. It has flat roofs that step up over the ground, first and second floors, with a hipped slate roof over the central area. A sub-rectangular-plan, single-storey, flat-roofed kitchen store projects to the rear, forming the northern side of a service courtyard within the re-entrant angle between the south-west wing and the main range. A similar former domestic coal store and latrine range projects from the right-hand side of the stair hall at the rear of the main range. A light well on either side of this range allows natural light into a cellar containing three beer and wine rooms, and a boiler room.

Rear Elevation

The rear north-west elevation is similarly detailed to the side elevations with the same brickwork and window styles, though the majority of these are narrower water closet windows. A gabled central range housing the stair hall and main staircase projects outward from the centre. A flat-roofed two-storey central projection has an off-set oculus at ground floor beneath a first-floor bay window with a segmental head supported by an ashlar sill and two brackets. The flat roof backs onto the gabled elevation with asymmetrical windows on the second floor and an oculus in the apex. The central range is flanked on either side by rectangular-plan, three-storey ablutions and latrine blocks with stepped flat roofs.

Interior

Ground Floor

The ground floor is entered through a central entrance porch leading into a central vestibule with dark oak half-glazed panelled doors with brass kick plates and half-glazed side panels. The vestibule leads into a hallway with a white terrazzo floor and oak panelling by Robert 'Mouseman' Thompson that rises to the picture rail. The hall is lit by brass chandeliers suspended from the ceiling and heated by a pair of carved oak radiator cabinets with carved Greek-key ventilation panels, and by a Tudor-style ashlar fireplace with a wrought-iron grate. The fireplace is set into a panelled chimney breast and has a carved overmantel displaying linen-fold panels and the crest of the Royal Corps of Signals.

The rear of the hallway contains the main well stairs, with painted concrete steps that have moulded ends and open string risers, a ramped timber handrail carried on a painted cast-iron balustrade of open panel balusters displaying a central wreath motif, and a square timber newel terminal on three thick wrought-iron posts, raised on a curtail step. The first flight of stairs has oak panelling up to the picture rail; the panelling then continues at dado height after the second landing. The staircase base is also panelled, with two small telephone booths lit by borrowed light from a central oculus via half-glazed side panels and by small circular windows in their doors, which are fitted with sinuous brass handles. At least ten signature 'Mouseman' Thompson mice carved in bas-relief can be found in the panelling of the hall and the right-hand axial corridor.

The axial corridor, divided by modern fire door partitions (not of special interest), runs the width of the building aligned north-east to south-west, giving access to the principal rooms by tall half-glazed doors with obscured glazed rectangular fanlights. To the left, the corridor provides access to the mess room (dining room), service stair, mess office, pantry, servery, and to a flight of stairs descending to a basement with a central heating boiler room, beer store, and wine cellar. To the right, the axial corridor provides access to an ante room with a folding partition screening a billiards table, a bar, a meeting room (Crimea Room, former billiards room) and to the ground-floor lavatories.

The mess room has oak panelled wainscoting and projecting wall piers that support encased beams and coved ceiling panels. The western end of the room has a raised stage, allowing it to be used for addresses and/or entertainments (this area is marked as 'Band' on an original site plan). The left-hand end of the axial corridor provides access via a small vestibule to a secondary mess bar and also leads into the west wing, with the kitchens and service area to the rear, top-lit by panelled skylights. The smaller ante rooms towards the north-eastern end of the axial corridor are similar in style to the mess room and have polished steel fireplaces set in Arts and Crafts-style oak overmantels with projecting wall piers that support encased beams and coved ceiling panels. The meeting room (former billiards room) to the rear is interconnected to the bar by a large open doorway and has a central rectangular parquet floor.

First and Second Floors

The first and second-floor axial corridors are accessed from the main staircase and by a service staircase in the west wing, and are subdivided by modern fire door partitions (not of special interest). The corridors serve bed-sitting rooms, with several bathrooms and water closets to the rear with modern sanitary ware. Each bedroom has cornicing, timber room dividers with octagonal decorative shafts, a fitted wardrobe, and a small sitting room. The moulded architraves to the first-floor bedroom doors are more heavily moulded than those of the second floor, suggesting a hierarchy of rank between different officers.

Servants' Quarters

The servants' quarters date from late 1925 to early 1926 and are of unknown architect. They are built of orange/brown bricks laid in English bond with painted galvanised steel windows and a hipped slate roof. The building has a rectangular plan, single-storey structure aligned north-east to south-west.

Exterior

The irregular four-bay main elevation faces south-east. The entrance is in the second bay from the left and has a half-glazed panelled timber door with four stacked horizontal glass panels set beneath a flat canted red rubbed-brick lintel. The remaining three bays have galvanised-steel windows set in timber window frames with ashlar sills and rubbed brick lintels. The window to the left has a pair of eight-light side-opening casements with a central mullion, while the other windows are twelve-light horizontal, centre-swivelling casements. The southern end wall also has paired casements. The irregularly set windows in the rear elevation are similar to those of the main elevation with a paired casement in the right-hand bay, and the northern end wall has three narrow frosted glass windows. The hipped roof is clad in Welsh slate with dark grey ridge tiles and lead flashing. It has deep eaves and is drained by a mixture of cast-iron and plastic rainwater goods.

Interior

The entrance leads into a plain plastered axial corridor running along the south-east wall. The southern end provides access to a common room. Three doorways in its north-western wall give access to three simple bedrooms, and the northern end provides access to an ablutions area comprising a urinal, water closet and bathroom.

Squash Court

The squash court was built about 1927 by an unknown architect. It is constructed of orange/brown bricks laid in stretcher bond, with artificial slate and plastic-coated corrugated sheeting roofs. The building has a square, double-pile plan with a projecting porch and plant room.

Exterior

This is a two-storey, four-bay, double-pile structure with a secondary gabled porch against the main south-east elevation, a lean-to plant room against the north-east wall, and a pair of gablet roofs separated by a central valley. The former panelled skylights of the roof have both been clad in plastic-coated corrugated sheeting. The ground floor of the main elevation has three twelve-light double casement windows with tile drip moulds and sills, and the first floor has four similar windows. All other walls are blind.

Interior

The interior has plain painted brick walls. A narrow ground-floor corridor entered from the porch spans the building against the south-east wall, with doorways in the north-west wall giving access into the two parallel squash courts. A timber winder staircase with a square newel post and a plain splat balustrade rises up into the eastern bay, giving access to a first-floor viewing gallery that spans the rear of both courts.

Pursuant to section 1(5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, it is declared that the modern steel fire escape, modern extractor equipment at the rear, and internal fire door partitions are not of special architectural or historic interest. However, any works which have the potential to affect the character of the listed building as a building of special architectural or interest may still require Listed Building Consent, and this is a matter for the Local Planning Authority to determine.