Description

PLYMOUTH

SX4654SW DURNFORD STREET, Stonehouse 740-1/60/776 (East side) 01/05/75 Royal Marine Barracks: Archway Block

GV II*

Guard house, officer's quarters and divisional offices, school, now chapel, including entrance block to marine barracks. 1867-71, by Colonel G Greene, Director of the Admiralty Works Department. MATERIALS: Plymouth limestone ashlar with limestone dressings; dry slate roofs: roofs of main blocks hipped to returns and with dormer windows behind stone parapets with moulded cornices, pedimented front and rear of taller central bays and with steep ramped pyramidal roofs to towers surmounted by weather vanes; ashlar lateral and end stacks. STYLE: Baroque Revival. PLAN: double depth block with central archway and chapel over, single depth connecting sections with rear arcades link double-depth outer accommodation cross-wings, that to the N deeper. EXTERIOR: 2-storey carriageway block, 3-storey-plus-attic flanking blocks, 2-storey pavilions and 3-storey cross-wing end blocks, the left hand block with basement. Road front has central pedimented block projecting with fine carved coat of arms. An impost string links an arcade of 5 round arches with architraves over original hornless sashes with fanlight heads. There are mid-floor strings and rusticated quoin strips. Ground floor has channelled rustication surrounding small side arches and with large central round carriage arch rising into flanking ashlar masonry above which frames 2 round medallions with carved upper torsos. Flanking blocks have quoin strips at the breaks, plain stone architraves and ground floor with pilastered openings and pedimented porches. Courtyard front has simpler detail to the similar carriage entrance block but otherwise is the principal front with 3:5:3-bay flanking blocks with square towers to central bays; 2-storey; 5-bay linking sections with projecting round-arched open loggias to ground floor and 3-bay pedimented end blocks with projecting central bays under segmental pediments linked to full-width triangular pediments behind. Each tower is ramped in to a narrower upper stage with a clock face to each side and swept pyramidal roof. The right-hand clock gives wind direction. The windows are mostly original hornless sashes with glazing bars; tripartite sashes to ground floor of cross wings flanking segmental arched doorways to the central bays.

INTERIOR: contains former apartments and offices with 6-panel doors and panelled shutters with plaster cornices, some stone fireplaces boxed in; a stone cantilevered open well stair to the S of the through arch with iron stick balusters. 5-bay through arch with round-arched vaults, and entrances each side to offices and guard house; above, former school, now chapel has a shallow barrel vault with plaster decoration, and late C19 fittings including an organ. HISTORY: originally housed the 1st and 2nd Commandant either side of the archway, with first-floor schoolroom, now chapel, above it, 24 subalterns in the N end range, and office and pay office off the inner arcades. The drawings were signed by Greene, who was responsible for several important buildings in the royal dockyards including the Sheerness boatstore. Forms a strongly articulated and richly decorated range with the contemporary additions to the N and S, extending to the W and closing the C18 parade ground. Stonehouse is the oldest and most important group of barracks in england not forming part of a fortification, a very rare example of C18 planning, and a complex of great historic value. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N: Devon: London: 1989-: 655; Random Records of the Royal Marines: Eastney: 1931-: 184; Dixon Lt Col R: Two Hundred Years of Stonehouse: 306-311; Plans: 1860-: PRO/ADM/140/309-310).

Listing NGR: SX4636454053

External Links

• Wikidata Q17554197

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Recommended Books

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  London 3: North West: North West v. 3 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Northamptonshire: Buildings of England Series (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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