The defensible barracks at South Hook Fort

The defensible barracks at South Hook Fort

This is a two-storey defensible barracks built from grey rock-faced limestone with flat parapet roofs. The structure is remarkable for its parabolic curved plan, a distinctive military design that maximises defensive firepower while protecting personnel.

The curved barrack block has its entrance slightly west of north, with flaring protective walls running out on each side to link to the defensive ditches. The ends of the parabolic curve project as bastions to cover the long rear of the cross range. The exterior parapet has widely separated embrasures and is finished with a bull-nosed moulding at its base. Small square windows with rock-faced stone voussoirs and stone sills are irregularly dispersed across the curved facade, with many on the east side of the entrance enlarged upward to rectangular shape. On the west side, there are four windows above and three below, then two more above the main entry. The entrance gateway is particularly imposing, featuring heavy timber double doors in a cambered-headed grey ashlar-framed recessed opening inscribed 'South Hook Fort', with a plaque above dated 'VR 1863'. Slots for drawbridge chains flank the doorway, and one window sits above the plaque.

Immediately right of the entry, the wall flares out with rock-faced coping running as a string course over two gun loops, with a short single-storey building containing five gun loops separating the wall from the fort. To the left of the entry are some five bays of enlarged windows on each floor before a corresponding wall flares out with a similar one-storey gun position between the wall and the fort.

The main fort wall has three square windows above and four lengthened windows over two doors with stone voussoirs on the south front. This front has bastions projecting from each side, each with three long loops to the ground floor and two square windows above. The canted inner walls have three square gun ports stepped to follow the line of stairs within. The long main wall is almost without openings, save for one square window to the first floor centre and a cambered-headed door to the ground floor left.

Opposite the main entry, a section of embankment is stone-faced in a zigzag of six faces, with an inner projection containing square gun openings at ground floor on each face. A longer range at right angles extends each side, with rows of square gunnery holes on two levels, then outer blank returns.

Built into the protective bank opposite the south-east bastion are single-storey vaulted chambers with a stone front wall. This section has a door between two windows to the left, an altered section with a flat-roofed forebuilding, then a window and wide door.

Entering through the gateway passage, which has granite cobbles and recesses for the drawbridge mechanism, one reaches the courtyard. Guard room access lies on the right of the entrance passage.

The courtyard is essentially a parabolic curved fifteen-bay arcade of grey limestone ashlar piers carrying ashlar segmental arches of differing widths. These front fireproof vaults with infilled two-storey elevations in rendered red brick. This arcade faces across a grassed court to a wholly stone two-storey cross range.

The curving range has rock-faced coping and iron railings set between nine short stone chimney stacks positioned over the piers. The arcading comprises, from each end, first an arch obscured by stairs, then two broad arches each with three small-paned timber cross-windows to the ground floor and similar windows flanking a door with a window over on the upper floor, their heads following the arch line. Windows are divided by rendered piers. The next two bays have similar but narrower windows (window and door below, two windows above), and all these first four arches have a high iron access balcony with plain iron rails and stone-flag floor on cast-iron hollow drainage columns. The apex of the curve has seven narrower bays, six with two twelve-pane sashes with stone sills on each floor (the first on the left has a ground floor segmental ashlar arch to an entrance tunnel). The centre bay is narrower still, with one sash over an arched entry to a passage leading to the stair that gives access to upper floors. A flat concrete roof with railing faces the court, and a defensible parapet with embrasures faces the exterior.

The cross range is not central, positioned closer to the right end than the left. The ends of the curved range are linked to the back of the cross range by a wall with an arch on each floor giving access to a cantilevered granite stair up to the balcony. The wall parapet ramps up to the higher defensible parapet at the back of the cross range. To the left of the cross range, the wall has an iron balcony on brackets for access between ranges and a single-storey windowless block in front, with coped parapet, attached to the left end of the cross range.

The cross range has a rock-faced stone front wall with coping and iron railings. Two storeys of twelve-pane sash windows, mostly damaged, span eleven bays. The centre three windows are spaced closer over a broad segmental arched entry flanked by pairs of gun loops. The four bays to the left have a ground floor with five windows and a door with fanlight. The four bays to the right have another door with fanlight and another broad segmental-arched entry flanked by three gun loops on each side. Granite steps lead to the doorways. To the right of the cross range, a recess provides access to stairs as on the other side, but also includes a door to the outside.

The barrack rooms on the ground floor have plastered timber ceilings, while upper rooms appear to be vaulted. Rear windows have stone surrounds and wooden shutters fitted with musket holes. The cross range contains two wooden staircases within the fanlighted doors and has brick internal walls.

The building dates to 1863, as evidenced by the royal cypher and date on the plaque above the entrance.