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 (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 B was a huge structure which provided accomodation for 480 men and 40 NCO's in a 35 by 2 fenestrated bay block of 3 storeys and a basement. The block was divided into flats of three bays, each with its own door in the rear of the building. Opposite each door were the cook houses, privvies and ablutions contained in a single storey range running parallel to the main block. Each flat was self contained and had its own wooden staircase against the rear wall. This occasioned one of the two major criticisms of the barracks during the Barracks and Hospitals Improvement Commission visit in 1858, which noted that the staircases cut off a great deal of the light from the windows (the other obvious criticism was the co-location of the cookhouses and the privvies). The Commission noted also that all the barracks ceilings were lined with zinc; why is not clear. The basement contained stores ond offices, with entrances in the front elevation.

Of the south-western two thirds of this building, little is visible a prominent but graded scarp, 1.8m high, marks the north-western edge of the terrace on which the block stood but is in part the product of cutting away the terrace revetment wall. Parrallel and south-east is the second scarp on the line of the principal internal axial wall and probably results from its removal. Part of the south-western end of the wall to the basement, in yellow stock brick laid in English bond, survives.

However, the north-eastern third has fared better, with the survival of most of the basement level which in 1865 was occupied by three rooms; a large bath room in the north-east and two store rooms. There are remains of the north-western, north-easterm and south-western walls of this level, mainly in yellow stock brick laid to English bond and formerly rendered. Although most of the render has fallen off, the pick marks in the brickwork, made to give the render a good hold, are visible. The basement level is reached down a flight of stone steps which originaly led to a corridor; the steps have been given a concrete screed and iron anti-slip bars along the leading edges; a concrete drainage channel has been let into the steps on the wall side. The north-western wall is a revetment for the terrace and the steps originally led into a corridor. Only a stub of the other wall, 0.58m wide, projects from the north-eastern wall, preserving a short section of the corridor, in the end of which is a blind recess at floor level. The recess is clearly pencilled into the 1865 plan and is therefore later. The north-eastern wall is the end wall of the whole block; it contains a single recess, 0.76m high by 0.66m wide and 0.47m deep, with a sandstone lintel: it was probably for a lamp. The south-western wall is an internal partition and survives up to 2.5m high: remains of render stops conspicuously two courses from the top and there is a crudely inserted horizontal slot, 0.93m wide and 0.07m high at high level.

Above and alongside the north western wall is another corridoor 2.04m wide, at ground floor level, defined by a brick wall 1.95m tall. This coridor formerly provided access to the ablution rooms behind the main block. At its north eastern end, a flight of steps leads up onto a concrete surface formerly separationg this block and the staff Sergeant quarters to the north- east. The steps are in stone, with lead plugs for iron railings at the edges, but they have been repaired with concrete and cream-coloured non slip tiles. (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 B 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, 1860, Front elevation, a section and floor plans of officers quarters, range B, Western Heights, as executed (Plan). SKE51556.

Sources and further reading

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