Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

Victoria Hall which was constructed in 1898 at the site of the former Waggon Store, is located on the south side of Citadel Road, at the very top of the slope overlooking the site of the other buildings of South Front Barracks. It is currently in use as the Young Offenders’ Institution Officers’ Recreation Club and is in reasonable condition. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• MARRIED QUARTERS (Altered, Post Medieval to Modern - 1898 AD? to 1903 AD?)
• RECREATION CENTRE (Altered, Post Medieval to Modern - 1898 AD? to 1903 AD?)
• SCHOOLROOM (Altered, Modern - 1903 AD? to 1945 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

Victoria Hall which was constructed in 1898 at the site of the former Waggon Store, is located on the south side of Citadel Road, at the very top of the slope overlooking the site of the other buildings of South Front Barracks. It is currently in use as the Young Offenders’ Institution Officers’ Recreation Club and is in reasonable condition. There have been only a few alterations, comprising suspended ceilings and an additional door from the lobby to the hall, to an otherwise original fabric. It is the last standing example of the wide range of institutional buildings formerly provided for the garrison of the Western Heights. This building may have been provided as an alternative off-duty recreation to the Canteen and Regimental Institute - which resembles it in design but sold beer - and to the fleshpots of Dover. It is a brick-built, thirteen-by-three bay single-storey building of pier and panel construction in English bond, with an oversailing pitched roof. As built in 1898, Victoria Hall formed a long rectangular range comprising a central six-bay hall with a three-bay room at its south-west end and a four-bay Married Quarters at the north-east end. A 1903 extension consists of a two-storey three-by-four bay wing built at the south-west end, with a lean-to veranda along two-thirds of the south-east wall of the 1898 building. The 1903 work was undertaken to convert the entire building into a school and educational establishment. It was constructed of brick laid in stretcher bond with a pitched slate roof parallel to the original building. The first floor was taken up largely by a Mens’ Educational Room, with a small store room in one corner, and was reached via a stair from the lobby of the 1898 building. A veranda was built in 1903, from the new wing along the south-east wall of the 1898 building, as far as the first bay of the Married Quarters. (1)

A pland dating to 1926 shows the hall after the major (1903) alterations had been made to it. (2)

<1> RCHME, 2001, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 9: South Front Barracks. Later 19th and 20th-century barracks complex (Unpublished document). SKE17505.

<2> Royal Engineers, 1926, Hand-tinted copy of plans, sections and location plan of Victoria Hall in the South Front Barracks at Western Heights (Plan). SKE51613.

Sources and further reading

Related records