The Keep Jellallabad Barrack

A gatehouse tower marking the entrance to a military barracks, built between 1879 and 1881. It was designed by Army Divisional Surveyor Thomas Berry, working with Major Crozier RE, as part of the barracks for Prince Albert's Somersetshire Light Infantry (36th Brigade Depot).

The Keep is an imposing, fortress-like structure of four storeys built in red brick laid in English bond, with yellow brick three-course bands and dressed stone details. The roof is flat with asphalt surfacing, and there are plain brick chimney stacks. The street frontage is dominated by a pair of tall, projecting rectangular towers flanking a central carriage archway, with a single taller rectangular tower projecting from the north-east corner overlooking the barrack yard.

The main block and all towers have crenellated parapets with widely spaced crenels finished with dressed stone sills. The parapets are set forward on a dressed stone cornice band supported by closely spaced brick strip corbels. The east tower's outer corner on the street front is raised to provide anchorage for a flagpole.

Three dressed stone bands run across the elevations at window sill level on each upper storey. All windows on all elevations have dressed stone lintels and sills. The inner return walls of the flanking towers on the street front are curved, with the upper stages above supported on elaborate corbelling. Each corbel features a moulded stone base and two dressed stone bands alternating with brick offsets or vertical panels. The corbelled angle of the east tower projects higher, in the third stage, than the corresponding corbel of the west tower.

The battered plinth has moulded stone offset capping with two yellow brick bands—one at sill level and another at the level of stone transoms in the two slit windows flanking the archway. These bands continue across the towers and in slightly projecting wing walls on either side. The wing walls have a lower stone-capped plinth. Above the ground-floor lintels runs a continuous moulded stone string course.

The carriage archway has recessed brick jambs and a stone segmental arch in two orders, with a stone string course following the extrados curve. The upper stone arch is painted blue-green with "JELLALLAD" inscribed in white. Double doors with three vertical panels and vertical boards are fitted within, featuring a wicket door in the right-hand leaf, C4 strap hinges, and top rail spikes. A decorative pierced metal screen sits within the arch.

Each upper floor of the main block contains six narrow slit windows with recessed casements. The flanking towers have similar slit windows, and the east tower features a two-light casement with top light over transom at the front. Pairs or single musket loops with stone sills and heads are positioned on each storey to provide covering fire across the entrance.

The barrack yard front has a similar carriage archway with stone hoodmould and side drops. The fenestration is irregular, with nine-slit windows with inset casements on each storey above. The left tower has staggered slit windows lighting the stair to the front and musket loops on each stage of the return wall for flanking fire across the entrance.

The interior was not inspected during the survey.

The barracks is named after the involvement of the 13th Light Infantry Regiment (from 1879 Prince Albert's Somersetshire Light Infantry) in the siege of Jellallabad, Afghanistan, in 1841–42.