Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)

Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks, Le Cateau Road, Colchester

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Overview

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1375577
Date first listed:
08-Jul-1998
List Entry Name:
Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)
Statutory Address:
Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks, Le Cateau Road, Colchester

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Official list entry

Heritage Category:
Listed Building
Grade:
II
List Entry Number:
1375577
Date first listed:
08-Jul-1998
List Entry Name:
Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)
Statutory Address 1:
Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks, Le Cateau Road, Colchester

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

The scope of legal protection for listed buildings

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:
Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks, Le Cateau Road, Colchester

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:
Essex
District:
Colchester (District Authority)
Parish:
Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:
TL 99293 24518

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Enhancement on 30 July 2025 to amend the name, address, description and to reformat the text to current standards

TM 9924 NW
584/8/10011

COLCHESTER
LE CATEAU ROAD
Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)
Barrack Block B

(Formerly listed as Cavalry Barracks B, Le Cateau Barracks, Colchester Garrison)

GV
II

Former Royal Artillery barracks, built in 1874-75 to a design by Lieutenant General Charles Brisbane Ewart RE, Deputy Director of Works for Barracks at the War Office.

MATERIALS: red brick with yellow brick bands and stone lintels, slate roof and brick ridge stacks.

PLAN: rectangular single-depth plan with corner officers' stables and stores.

EXTERIOR: two-storey; 6:4:6-window range. Similar front and rear elevations have coped end gables and patterned brick eaves, with projecting two-window single-storey blocks at each end and a central pediment gable. Square stable windows extend along north side, with central segmental-arched double doors, the end blocks have left-hand doors and a right-hand window, and a louvred oculus; 4/4-pane sashes to barrack rooms above. South side has a band of patterned brick below the stable windows, and three doorways separated by windows to the central gable; the upper floor are set back to form a balcony between the gable and end blocks, with diagonal iron railings.

INTERIOR: the stables, divided into two sections, have a central aisle between cast-iron posts dividing the stalls, supporting a brick jack-arch floor with ties between the joists; office and storerooms to each end. A central imperial stair leads up to the 22-man barrack rooms each side of the NCO's room.

HISTORY: Le Cateau is the last surviving example of the new layout of cavalry barracks developed at Aldershot in the 1850s. As a fireproof building with enhanced ventilation for the men, an advanced design of cavalry barracks for the day, though using the traditional plan of men's rooms over stables. Part of a group with the other barrack buildings, Le Cateau was the second permanent barracks built at Colchester after the adjoining Calvary Barracks which were built in 1862-64.

SOURCES: Dietz P: Garrison: Ten Military Towns: London: 1986, pp 3; PSA Drawings Collection, NMR, Swindon: CTR 130-158.

Listing NGR: TL9929324518

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:
469541
Legacy System:
LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Dietz, P, Garrison Ten Military Towns, (1986), 3

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.

Ordnance survey map of Barrack Block B, Royal Artillery Barracks (also known as Le Cateau Barracks)

Map

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© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2026. OS AC0000815036. Use of this mapping is subject to Terms and Conditions.

End of official list entry

All text content is available under the Open Government Licence v3.0 , except where otherwise stated. Any supplied maps are © Crown Copyright [and database rights] 2026 OS AC0000815036 and may not be reproduced without permission.

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