Description

TG 20 NW
1188/4/123

NORWICH
BRITANNIA ROAD (north-east side)
Britannia Barracks (H.Q. Royal Anglian Regiment and Regimental Museum)

5.6.72

GV
II
Barracks, hospital and offices, now museum. c1886, by R E officers for the Inspector General for Fortifications. Brick with terracotta dressings, ribbed brick lateral and ridge stacks with cornices, and tiled hipped roof Artisan Mannerist Revival style. Axial double-depth plan.

EXTERIOR: Two storeys with attic; nine-bay range. A richly decorated, asymmetrical block has three principal elevations, cill bands, ground-floor cornice and eaves band, rubbed brick segmental-arched windows with aprons and keys, raised surrounds to larger first-floor windows and horned 4/4- and 6/6-pane sashes with small-paned overlights. Front in two sections, to the left a pair of gables set forward and connected by a balustrade obscured by a mid C20 single-storey service block, with a tripartite central stair light with a 9/9-pane sash in a tall half dormer, paired windows to the left-hand gable and a canted oriel to the half-hipped right-hand gable; one-window ranges each side, that to the right with a doorway with boarded door.

Right-and four-window section has gabled half dormers, with a large octagonal two storey corner tower, narrow windows to each face and a leaded ogee dome with gabled dormers to alternate sides. Rear also two sections, a symmetrical right-hand seven-bay range with projecting end gables with paired windows and terracotta tiles to an attic oculus, a central segmental-arched doorway with pilasters and a recessed six-panel door, square light above with glazing bars, and a gabled dormer with pilasters.
Left-hand five-window range has large external stacks to second and fourth bays with curved sides and a pediment above eaves level, the left-hand one containing a doorway with small-paned overlights, and tall first-floor windows, and gabled 'half dormers to middle and right-hand bays; left-hand return has triple windows and a large half dormer with enriched gable and oculus.

INTERIOR: original front entrance leads to a front open well stair with curtail and stick balusters, a large semi-circular arch to an axial corridor, good marble fireplaces and panelled shutters.

HISTORY: a standard 60-bed pavilion plan regimental hospital found at the Localisation depots like Reading and Bodmin, but a unique and nicely detailed example. A unique example of the Queen Anne style applied to barracks, comparable with the work of Norman Shaw or J.J Stevenson at this time; the octagonal tower contained baths. Part of a group with the former barracks and officers' mess, now HM Prison (qv).

(PSA Drawings Collection, NMR: 1886-: CTR 71,72).

Listing NGR: TG2431709553

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26569590

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

• 
  The Victorian House Manual (2nd Edition): How They Were Built, Improvements & Refurbishment, Solutions to All Common Defects - Includes Relevant ... ... Properties (Haynes Manual) (Haynes Manuals)
• 
  [(Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1968)
• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  For the Record