Barrack Block, Maker Heights Barracks

Details

SX 45 SW MAKER WITH RAME MOUNT EDGECOMBE

1551-0/6/10002 Barrack block, Maker
Heights barracks

GV II*


Infantry barrack block; later used by social services; disused. 1804-08, by the Ordnance Board; upper floor rebuilt 1859-60. Rubble with brick and granite dressings, rendered later to the front and ends, ridge stacks truncated, with slate hipped roof
PLAN: I-shaped plan with double-depth officers' quarters to the South end, 3 single-depth barrack rooms to each floor. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 3:8:3-window range. A symmetrical front with the end sections set forward, with 2 ashlar porches 6 bays from the ends with pilasters, cornice, and blocking course, the left-hand one back-to-back, with gun slits and openings to sides; horned 6/6 pane sashes boarded at time of survey (1995), the windows to the officers' end have label moulds. 3-window S-return has a 2-storey porch and label moulds. North end has a doorway and external stair. Unrendered rear with more pronounced end projections, and a central external stair of granite treads, formerly with iron rails, with 2 opposing flights joining to one up to later brick platform. INTERIOR: officers' section, not accessible from the main range, has an axial corridor with a stair flight from the entrance hall with uncut string, column newel and stick balusters, a 4-centred fanlight at the end of the hall, and rooms with cast-iron fire surrounds with pulvinated frieze and shelf above, panelled doors and shutters. The central section has 3 barrack rooms with king post roofs and tiled fire surrounds, with some simple timber fittings. The North end double depth with a large fireplace in the party wall, possibly later. HISTORY: A typical though now rare C18 plan, in which officers and men shared the same range. Originally with timber and tile-hung upper storey. Maker was a barracks for over 200 infantry to protect the Heights overlooking Devonport Dockyard, for a garrison manning the line of 1782 redoubts Nos 1-4 (SAM). It was built as part of an extended building campaign during the Revolutionary War, to protect Devonport Dockyard. This is the most complete and unaltered example in England of a small garrison barracks from this significant period, and includes many of the ancillary buildings within a defensible site.
(Exeter Archaeology Report: Pye A: Maker Barracks: 1994-; Transactions of Devon Association for Advancement of Science: Breihan J. Barracks in Devon during the Revolutionary & Napoleonic Wars: 1990-)

Listing NGR: SX4334551282

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

469546

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pye, A, Exeter Archaeology Report in Maker Barracks, (1994)
Breihan, J, Proceedings of Devon Association for the Advancement of Science in Army Barracks in Devon during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic War, (1990)

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