Officers' Mess And Stables, Bourlon Barracks

Officers' Mess and Stables, Bourlon Barracks

The Officers' Mess at Bourlon Barracks is a neo-Georgian building designed by the Designs Branch of the War Office and constructed in 1938. Built in red brick laid in stretcher bond with a Westmoreland slate roof laid to diminishing courses with close mitred hips, the building exemplifies the official military architectural style of the pre-war period.

The main block comprises eleven bays with set-back three-bay end sections arranged around a C-shaped plan formed around a rear north-facing service yard. A projecting Portland stone ashlar porch, which forms the focal point of the south-facing entrance elevation, features arched openings to the sides with Doric columns and pilasters flanking the arched doorway. The glazed doors within are double-leafed oak. The ground floor of the central section is lit by tall arch-headed windows with twelve-over-twelve pane timber sashes and gauged brick heads. The upper floors and side elevations have rectangular sash windows, predominantly twelve-over-twelve pane to the first floor of the front elevation and six-over-nine pane elsewhere. Triple windows light the first floor front above the entrance. The windows feature exposed sash boxes and slim glazing bars. Deep eaves are painted white. The side elevations incorporate gauged brick arches above the ground floor windows. To the rear of the main block is a flat-roofed projection with a tall arch-headed window flanked by side lights. Rainwater goods are dated 1938.

The plan is anchored by a central south-facing entrance opening into a central entrance and stair hall flanked by large reception rooms with bed-sitting rooms above. This central block is flanked by lower side wings, slightly set back, the west wing containing a further smaller reception room on the ground floor. Cross wings extending to the rear of these side wings complete the C plan, containing further bed-sitting rooms on the upper floor with various auxiliary rooms below.

The interior fixtures and fittings survive largely intact and are of good quality. The entrance stair hall is the most imposing space, featuring parquet flooring, a pair of fluted timber columns, and a part-glazed oak lobby screen with double entrance doors. The first floor glazed link and attached block to the east are not of special interest.

A stable block stands a short distance to the north-west, built to accommodate the officers' horses. Though more utilitarian in design, it is sympathetic to the Officers' Mess, featuring a hipped roof of graduated Westmorland slate and windows with Georgian-style glazing bars. The building comprises six bays with a chimney at the north end and a raised ventilated ridge. The stables retain their original internal surfacing and stalls. An adjacent range of post-war garages is not of special interest.

Bourlon Barracks was rebuilt from 1938 as part of Catterick's Second Reconstruction Plan, a major scheme of rebuilding permanent facilities at Gaza and Bourlon Barracks totalling £1,000,000. The Officers' Mess cost £25,000 and appears on the Ordnance Survey map of Catterick Camp published in 1939, though it may not have been completed by that date as the map shows no access drives to the building. The 1941 edition of the map shows the access drives in place along with the associated stable block. The Officers' Mess exemplifies the type erected at many army barracks and RAF stations nationally during the 1930s. Its neo-Georgian style had been approved by the Royal Fine Arts Commission, which oversaw the design of new military buildings of the period.