Exploring Kent's Past

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Monument details

Summary

A group of now demolished soldiers and officers accomodation blocks and associated buildings were arranged around the parade ground at the Western Heights (location accurate to the nearest 1m based on available information).

Monument Types

• BARRACKS (Demolished, Post Medieval to Modern - 1805 AD? to 1960 AD?)

Full description

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Summarised from report:

The accomodation blocks were arranged around and overlooking the parade ground, as far as was possible conforming to the accepted plan of the period. All of these were built as part of the original Napoleonic design and comprised large austere blocks of double-pile plan. Construction was of brick, laid to English-bond with flat arch window heads, deep sashes and half hipped slate roof concealing a central valley.

The soldiers quarters range A was the smaller of the two soldiers barracks, providing accomodation for 336 men and 21 NCO's in a 21 by 2 fenestrated bay block of three storeys. The block was divided into flats of three bays, each with its own door to the rear of the building. Opposite each door, across a paved alley, were the abolution rooms and urinals contained in a single storey range parrallel to the main block. Each flat was self contained and had its own wooden staircase against the rear of the wall.

The site lies under the present car park and is very smoothed with little visible on the surface. A shallow scarp, up to 1m high, betrays the underlying presence of the north-western and possibly the north-eastern walls. (1)

The earliest plan which shows the completed Napoleonic works which were undertaken at the Grand Shaft Barracks dates to 1810. (2) A later plan which dates to 1861, immediately prior to the 1860's scheme of works which were undertaken at the barracks site, gives further detail of the buildings constructed during the Napoleonic works, including lables of specific buildings. (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 Soldiers Quarters Range A 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> Major W H Ford, Royal Engineers, 1811, Plan Shewing the Appropriation of the Ordnance Lands on the Western Heights Dover 1811 (Map). SKE51523.

<3> Unknown, 1861, Dover, General Plan of the Western Heights Barracks (Plan). SKE51541.

<4> Royal Engineers, 1865, Front elevation, a section and floor plans of soldiers quarters, range A, Western Heights, as executed (Plan). SKE51546.

Sources and further reading

Related records