Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A mid 19th century military building, initially used as the Gun Shed, but later converted to a cart shed and then used for the storage and repair of motor vehicles. (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information)

Monument Types

• GUN STORE (Post Medieval to Modern - 1855 AD? to 1903 AD)
• CART SHED (Modern - 1903 AD to 1937 AD)
• MOTOR TRANSPORT BUILDING (Modern - 1937 AD to 1960 AD?)
• GARAGE? (Modern - 1960 AD? to 2050 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The former Gun Shed of the Grand Shaft barracks is still in use as a garage and is located on the top of the ridge with access from the eastern side of Centre Road. Its structural form and its absence from plans until 1861 hint at a construction date in the late 1850s; a record plan of 1867 identifies it as a Gun Shed, and one of 1892 specifically as the Ordnance Store Department Gun Shed. As such it was not part of the barracks but by 1904 it had been converted as a Cart Shed for the nearby Royal Engineers Store and finally, two plans of 1937 reveal the proposal to convert the building for the repair and storage of motor vehicles, as part of the barracks complex. It is a single-storey, twelve by three bay building of pier and panel construction with the piers in English bond and the panels in Flemish. It has a Welsh-slate roof with red clay ridge tiles and cast-iron guttering. The western elevation originally had an open front, divided into twelve bays by ten timber posts with deep chamfers and stops. The central location of the building, at a junction of main roads, suggests that its purpose was to accommodate a mobile reserve of artillery for rapid deployment across the Western Heights, perhaps in connection with the tactics proposed for the new Armstrong rifled field-gun. In this context, the Gun Shed may have continued to house mobile artillery equipment until the turn of the century. However, by 1903, three new stores had been built for mobilisation equipment and a year later the Gun Shed was being used as a Cart Shed by the Royal Engineers. (1-2)

A plan dating to 1896 shows the additional buildings and improvements which were constructed under the 1860's scheme of works at the Grand Shaft Barracks site, including the footprint of the new Gun Store. (3)

Many of the buildings of Grand Shaft Barracks are recorded in detail on a set of plans, mainly of the 1860s and 1870s, which were probably prepared to accompany the alterations and new building resulting from the recommendations of the Commission. The plan/elevation for the Gun Store shows the interior layout of the building and a number of external features. (4)

<1> RCHME, 2000, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 4: The Grand Shaft Barracks, 19th and 20th-century infantry barracks (Unpublished document). SKE17499.

<2> RCHME, 2001, The Western Heights, Dover, Kent. Report No 10: Miscellaneous Structures 1850-1945 (Unpublished document). SKE17506.

<3> Royal Engineers, 1896, Grand Shaft Barracks Dover (Plan). SKE51570.

<4> Office of Works, 1867, Hand-tinted plan, sections and elevations of a gun shed at Western Heights (Plan). SKE51576.

Sources and further reading

Related records