Description

PLYMOUTH

SX4653NW DURNFORD STREET, Stonehouse
740-1/65/780 (East side)
01/05/75 Royal Marine Barracks: Officer's
Mess

GV II*

Formerly known as: N & E Blocks, Officers Mess, Dining Hall &
Single Officer's Accom. DURNFORD STREET Stonehouse, R M
Barracks.
Officer's mess, dining hall, ante room, galley and courtyard
at Marines barracks. 1779-85, built for the Board of Ordnance
by Messrs Templer & Parlby. Largely rebuilt since; library and
lavatories added 1818, mess and music room 1859, courtyard
glazed over 1860.
MATERIALS: Plymouth limestone rubble with limestone dressings,
part rendered; dry slate hipped roof behind coped parapet over
band; dressed stone stack on the right and central slightly
outbuilt lateral stack.
PLAN: single-depth plan mess, music and ante room with
courtyard and kitchens to W.
EXTERIOR: 2 storey, 5-window range dining room; lower
2-storey, 2-window ante room; 3 storey, 3-window music room
and taller 4-storey 2-window range at N end. The lower storey
forms a semi-basement below a plat band. Dining room with
window in the central lateral stack, one of 5 tall
round-arched 1st-floor windows with plain architraves and
horned copies of original hornless sashes with glazing bars
and spoked fanlight heads. 3 small basement windows and
doorway with segmental heads.
W elevation is a similar 5-window range and there are 3
similar but blind round-arched windows to S end. Ante-room has
plat and cornice bands, parapet, and small ground-floor
windows, with 6/6-pane sashes to first floor. Music room has
central doorway with side lights, below a Venetian window;
6/6-pane ground-floor sashes each side, and small 3/3-pane
second floor sashes; end gables with stacks.
N end block has left hand doorway, single first floor Venetian
window and 6/6-pane sashes above. Doorways and windows have
plain flat surrounds. The parade ground side has a glazed roof
to the former courtyard.
INTERIOR: dining room panelled to dado, with deep coved
cornice and ceiling roundels, a large pedimented doorway at
the end of the hall with double 10-panel doors. A similar
decoration to the ante room and music room, probably copied
from original decoration after it was destroyed in the Blitz.

Former galley to the SW has a C19 king post roof. Courtyard
with c1860 arched cast-iron trusses to glazed hipped roof; mid
C20 stair.
HISTORY: originally the site of officer's accommodation,
though much rebuilt early C19. The sections to the N probably
include parts of the original walls. Barracks were built for
the Marine regiments, formed in 1755, at Chatham, Portsmouth
and Devonport, but this is the only one to have survived.
Stonehouse is the oldest and most important barracks in
England not forming part of a fortification, a very rare
example of C18 planning, and a complete complex of great
historic value.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-:
655).

Listing NGR: SX4643853969

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17554268

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

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  Central Leinster: Kildare, Laois and Offaly (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
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  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
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  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair by Hunt. Roger ( 2008 ) Hardcover