Description

WEEDEN BEC

1732/16/189 BRIDGE STREET
29-APR-87 LOWER WEEDON
(West side)
FORMER WEEDON BARRACKS, WEST MAGAZINE
OF SERIES OF FOUR MAGAZINES IN MAGAZIN
E ENCLOSURE

GV II*
One of four paired magazines built 1807-11 within the Magazine Enclosure at Weedon Bec. Flemish bond brick on rendered plinth with chamfered sandstone top course; dentilled eaves courses to side elevations. Stone-coped gables. Rectangular plan, with two vaulted chambers. Double-gabled elevations to north and south, with segmental arches of gauged brick to doorways in centre of each. Late C20 doors and windows, the latter replacing original ventilators. Side elevations have perforated wrought-iron plates to ventilators, which are baffled internally. Interior: catenary arches to each chamber, with some arched access doorways between.

Part of a unique planned military-industrial complex, complete with its own defensible transport system and surrounding walls. Although the magazines (drawings of 1816 in Royal Engineers Library, W140 (D38), and later plans and drawings also archived there) are smaller in terms of their individual scale than the late 18th century example at Priddy's Hard opposite the naval dock at Portsmouth (listed grade I and like the Weedon examples built to the distinctive British double-vaulted plan), as a group they had no rival until the suite of traversed magazines were built at Bull Point, Plymouth, in the 1850s (Scheduled Ancient Monument). Catenary arches were first used at Tipnor in the 1790s and then Colonel D'Arcy's magazine at Upnor. The use of traverses makes the group highly innovatory in terms of its planning, blast walls of earth (sometimes faced in brick) being henceforth a characteristic features of magazine complexes. These traverses have also uniquely assumed an architectural form.

For full details of the site see description of Storehouse No 2.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17543118

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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  Georgian Style and Design for Contemporary Living
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  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)
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  Somerset: South and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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