Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The former Canteen is situated at the northern end of the fort, orientated roughly east west. It was originally constructed in response to the 1858 Improvement Commission and was completed by 1870 at the latest. The original structure was much smaller than the structure that exists today, which was a single storeyed T shaped building. A series of improvements were made to the building in the 1890’s and by the beginning of the 20th century it had become known as the Recreational Institute. It was further extended and improved between 1913 and 1914 and then again in 1933, at which point it resembled the structure apparent today. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• CANTEEN (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1870 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• LIBRARY (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1870 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• RECREATIONAL HALL (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1870 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• COFFEE HOUSE (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1890 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• KITCHEN (Disused, Modern - 1913 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• LECTURE THEATRE (Disused, Modern - 1913 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The former Canteen is situated on the north side of the Parade Ground, across which it had uninterrupted views prior to the construction of the Dining Rooms and Cook House immediately to its south. It consists of a fourteen-bay main range, oriented roughly east-west, from which a much shorter but wider rear range, offset slightly west of centre, projects northwards. This morphology has been complicated by a series of additions. It was probably begun at the end of the 1850s, as were the nearby former Coal Yard and Straw Barn. This would be in keeping with the recommendations of the Barrack and Hospital Improvement Commission’s Interim Report on the Western Heights, which
called, among other things, for the provision of day rooms and reading rooms.

The Canteen was certainly built by 1870, when it appeared in outline on the site plan for an Armourer’s Shop nearby to the east, backing onto the Coal Yard to the east. As originally built the Canteen was single-storeyed, with a T-plan, and walls of yellowish ‘grey stocks’ in stretcher bond. By 1897, the western four bays of the main range formed a Tap Room. Four narrower bays roughly corresponding to the width of the rear range were occupied by a Bar to the rear and two small rooms, marked Tap and Shop, to the front. East of these there was a three-bay Library and finally a two-bay Recreation Room, each with independent access from the front, the latter with a large east-facing window. The rear wing formed the Canteen Sergeant’s Quarters. The main block provided a Living Room to the south and a Bedroom to the north. Probably in the mid-1890s a second rear range was added, west of the original one, forming a separate NCOs Room. Also before 1897, a Coffee Room was added in a flat-roofed block projecting rearwards from the Recreation Room. The projection in its north wall was probably for a stack.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Canteen became known as the Recreation or Recreational Establishment. This was partially raised and extended between May 1913 and March 1914. The new upper floor was restricted to the eastern two-thirds of the original main range, but extended eastwards over an added fourteenth bay. The new work matched the original in its use of grey stock bricks. The eastern part of the ground floor, formerly the Library and Recreation Room, was the Supper Room which doubled as a Lecture Room and incorporated a stage in the added bay at the east end. Entertainments other than lectures were catered for by the provision of two Dressing Rooms, housed in the former Coffee Room, which was extended slightly eastwards in order to communicate directly with the stage. West of the Supper Room the central area was divided between Stores, a Grocery Shop and a passage, which gave at its west end onto the three-bay Soldiers’ Room. Against the main range the former Living Room became a Kitchen and Scullery (the former Bedroom), out of which a small unnamed room, probably a larder or pantry, was partitioned off to the west. Along the east side of the Kitchen and Scullery were a lobby, an Office and a newly constructed Bedroom. The added first floor augmented the social and educational facilities available to the common soldier.

In 1933 a series of improvements, centred on the extension of the first floor along the original rear
range, and infilling, at ground-floor level only, the space between this and the range containing the Corporals’ Room’, were constructed. The first-floor extension was primarily concerned with improved accommodation for staff, and in keeping with its domestic nature it has a lower eaves level than the earlier part of the first floor. (1)

Detail of this structure appears on a plan dating to 1871 which shows all of the works which were undertaken under the reccomendations of the Royal Commission. (2)

<1> English Heritage, 2004, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent: Report No. 2: The Citadel (Unpublished document). SKE17690.

<2> Captain H S Palmer (?), 1871, War Department OS 1:2500 Sheet LXVIII.15, revision of 1871, annotated with positions of magazines in the Citadel in 1877 (Map). SKE51524.

Sources and further reading

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