Britannia Barracks (H.q. Royal Anglian Regiment and Regimental Museum)

Details

TG 20 NW
1188/4/123

NORWICH
BRITANNIA ROAD (north-east side)
Britannia Barracks (H.Q. Royal Anglian Regiment and Regimental Museum)

5.6.72

GV
II
Barracks, hospital and offices, now museum. c1886, by R E officers for the Inspector General for Fortifications. Brick with terracotta dressings, ribbed brick lateral and ridge stacks with cornices, and tiled hipped roof Artisan Mannerist Revival style. Axial double-depth plan.

EXTERIOR: Two storeys with attic; nine-bay range. A richly decorated, asymmetrical block has three principal elevations, cill bands, ground-floor cornice and eaves band, rubbed brick segmental-arched windows with aprons and keys, raised surrounds to larger first-floor windows and horned 4/4- and 6/6-pane sashes with small-paned overlights. Front in two sections, to the left a pair of gables set forward and connected by a balustrade obscured by a mid C20 single-storey service block, with a tripartite central stair light with a 9/9-pane sash in a tall half dormer, paired windows to the left-hand gable and a canted oriel to the half-hipped right-hand gable; one-window ranges each side, that to the right with a doorway with boarded door.

Right-and four-window section has gabled half dormers, with a large octagonal two storey corner tower, narrow windows to each face and a leaded ogee dome with gabled dormers to alternate sides. Rear also two sections, a symmetrical right-hand seven-bay range with projecting end gables with paired windows and terracotta tiles to an attic oculus, a central segmental-arched doorway with pilasters and a recessed six-panel door, square light above with glazing bars, and a gabled dormer with pilasters.
Left-hand five-window range has large external stacks to second and fourth bays with curved sides and a pediment above eaves level, the left-hand one containing a doorway with small-paned overlights, and tall first-floor windows, and gabled 'half dormers to middle and right-hand bays; left-hand return has triple windows and a large half dormer with enriched gable and oculus.

INTERIOR: original front entrance leads to a front open well stair with curtail and stick balusters, a large semi-circular arch to an axial corridor, good marble fireplaces and panelled shutters.

HISTORY: a standard 60-bed pavilion plan regimental hospital found at the Localisation depots like Reading and Bodmin, but a unique and nicely detailed example. A unique example of the Queen Anne style applied to barracks, comparable with the work of Norman Shaw or J.J Stevenson at this time; the octagonal tower contained baths. Part of a group with the former barracks and officers' mess, now HM Prison (qv).

(PSA Drawings Collection, NMR: 1886-: CTR 71,72).



Listing NGR: TG2431709553

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

228865

Legacy System:

LBS

End of official list entry