Waterloo and St. Lucia's Barracks, St. Lucia’s Barracks, Barracks Lane, Omagh, Co. Tyrone, BT78

Waterloo and St. Lucia's Barracks Block, Omagh, County Tyrone

This is a large, detached, multi-bay, two-storey-over-sunken-basement stone barracks block, bearing a date plaque of 1881, though construction began in 1878. It was designed by James H. Butler, Civil Engineer, acting as superintending officer of the Royal Engineer Department, and built by contractors Messrs. Fulton of Belfast, with a further contract carried out by Messrs. Colhoun Brothers of Derry. The building sits on the north side of the St. Lucia's Barracks parade ground, east of Barracks Lane, on an elevated and imposing site within the town of Omagh. It is a major component of the late 19th-century barracks complex, which is notable for its completeness and degree of preservation, and carries strong historic associations with The Royal Irish Regiment and The Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers.

Architectural Overview

The building is rectangular on plan. Its principal (south) elevation faces the parade ground and is symmetrical, twenty-four windows wide, broken by a pair of three-bay gabled breakfront bays. The rear (north) elevation is also twenty-four windows wide, broken by a pair of single-bay, four-storey gabled breakfronts, each flanked by a pair of full-height stair turrets with semi-conical roofs. The west gable is blank, featuring a projecting chimneybreast with sandstone offsets and sandstone sill and lintel courses continued from the other elevations. The east gable is detailed in the same manner as the west.

The roofs are pitched and covered in natural slate. Paired stone ashlar chimneystacks rise above the roofline, and rainwater goods consist of ogee-profile cast-iron gutters with round-profile downpipes.

Walling and Dressings

The walls are built of coursed squared rubble local limestone — described at the time of construction as the local limestone with Dungannon gritstone dressings — with all external walls brick-lined internally as a preventative against damp, as reported in the Tyrone Constitution of 16 December 1881. Ashlar sandstone dressings include a splayed tooled plinth, flush platbands at sill and lintel levels, a projecting eaves course, and tooled quoins. The gables have tripartite ventilation loops to their centres.

Windows and Doors

Windows throughout are uPVC casements — a later replacement of the original fenestration — square-headed to the first floor and camber-headed elsewhere, all with dressed sandstone surrounds and sills. Bipartite windows have basalt-relieving arches.

On the principal south elevation, each of the two gabled breakfronts has three paired windows to each floor, with stone relieving arches, and a central square-headed door opening at ground floor level fitted with a vertically-sheeted timber double-leaf door and a four-pane overlight. Each entrance is approached via two concrete steps and a concrete platform bridging the basement area, which has a stone coping and steel railing. A pair of sandstone ashlar piers open to a double-quadrant railing on stone coping, with a further set of piers to the front bitmac area. Additional camber-headed door openings give access to the basement area, with sandstone surrounds, vertically-sheeted timber doors, and four-pane overlights.

To the rear north elevation, the basement is at ground level. The central twelve bays at basement level have narrow window openings with flush sandstone surrounds; elsewhere openings are camber-headed. The breakfront bays on this elevation have square-headed bipartite window openings with flush sandstone surrounds over a segmental-arch-headed door opening at basement level, fitted with a vertically-sheeted timber door flanked by sidelights, and opening onto three stone steps. The stair turrets have loop openings to each floor with flush sandstone surrounds and sandstone lintel and sill courses matching the remainder of the elevation. At basement level on this elevation there is also a series of square rebated apertures formed in tooled sandstone.

On the principal elevation, the sandstone eaves course forms a plain raking cornice to both gables, with stepped kneeler stones at the base of each gable.

Historical Background

Construction of the barracks, parade ground, and boundary walls began in 1878. The buildings first appear on an 1882 Ordnance Survey town plan of Omagh, captioned "Infantry Barracks." Annual Revision Records from 1879 describe the new complex as comprising regimental shops and stores, a Paymaster's Office, soldiers' quarters, a Militia Office, a Bread Store, a Regimental Shop, and a meat store, among other facilities. The estimated cost recorded at that time was approximately £15,500, with a further contract of £25,000 taken by Cahoon of Derry. By 1881 further additions were recorded. The Tyrone Constitution of 16 December 1881 reported that the total works cost between £30,000 and £40,000.

The same article describes the barracks block specifically: "Directly across the parade stands a large three-storey building upwards of 300 feet long, the basement storey of which is utilized as stores and workshops, the two upper storeys being the men's barracks and accommodating 164 non-commissioned officers and men. There are eight large barrack rooms in the building, and to each attached a spacious lavatory, etc., also a separate room for the non-commissioned officers in charge, with a small inspection window looking into the room." The block and the guardhouse were noted as having been built approximately three years before the article's publication, by Messrs. Fulton of Belfast, but had remained unoccupied until shortly before. At the rear of the soldiers' block stood a cookhouse fitted with Captain Warren's Army cooking apparatus.

The article also records the considerable engineering works undertaken to form the parade ground: approximately 30,000 tons of earth were excavated and removed to achieve suitable levels and gradients, and some 4,000 tons of stone and gravel were used to surface the parade and the road passing over it. The parade had a marked slope that was not levelled until after the First World War. The town water supply was laid on throughout the barracks, with hydrants at convenient intervals in case of fire. The barracks were enclosed by a substantial boundary wall of local stone, coped with heavy concrete coping, standing eleven feet above the surface of the parade on the inside and between twelve and twenty feet on the outside, and running approximately 1,800 feet in length, with flanking chambers. The boundary walls and parade were built at the same time as the main barracks block.

A memorial affixed to the boundary wall overlooking the parade ground was erected around 1910 by the 2nd Battalion of Royal Fusiliers in memory of their comrades who lost their lives during foreign service between 1888 and 1908.

Setting

The barracks block sits within the enclosed St. Lucia's Barracks complex, on the north side of the parade ground. Proceeding clockwise from the block, the surrounding buildings within the complex include St. Lucia's Club, the Sergeant's Mess Hall, the Battalion Headquarters, South Africa and two stores, the Guardroom, the Army Recruiting Centre, and the Officer's Mess Hall. The complex occupies an elevated and prominent position within Omagh, reflecting an important dimension of the town's architectural and social heritage.