Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

The former Sergeants’ Mess, now used as a Garden Store and Security Office, is located on the south side of the Parade Ground. It was built between February 1898 and February 1899, replacing a makeshift establishment in the Short Casemates. The single-storeyed building has grey stock brick cavity walls incorporating bands of a deeper red brick and stands on a chamfered plinth of blue brick. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• BAR (LICENSED) (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1898 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• KITCHEN (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1898 AD? to 1945 AD?)
• SERGEANTS MESS (Disused, Post Medieval to Modern - 1898 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The former Sergeants’ Mess, now used as a Garden Store and Security Office, is located on the south side of the Parade Ground. It was built between February 1898 and February 1899, replacing a makeshift establishment in the Short Casemates. The single-storeyed building has grey stock brick cavity walls incorporating bands of a deeper red brick and stands on a chamfered plinth of blue brick. The flat concrete roofs of the principal ranges, laid over steel joists, are an original feature, though disguised by a boarded fascia intended to link the original work visually with a two-storeyed addition of c1970, this obscures the original south front of the Mess. The main range, distinguished by its greater height, formed a large Mess Room extending east-west across the south end of the building. On the west wall there is a terra-cotta plaque with Queen Victoria’s cipher and the date 1898. The entrance was via a lower block adjoining to the east, which contained a lobby, wash room and WCs. The lower range to the rear comprised the Kitchen, Cook’s Room, Scullery, Larder, Store and Bar. Between 1900 and 1911 a Reading Room was added, projecting southwards from the Dining Portion, from which it was entered. It was a well-lit room heated by a fireplace on the west wall. In 1940 an L-plan timber hut was added, linked to the Reading Room by a short covered way, to provide a Dining Room and Ante-Room. Both the Reading Room and the hut were removed c1970 when the large two-storeyed Store was built against the original south front of the Mess. (1)

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

Sources and further reading

Related records