OLD DEVONPORT . UK
www.olddevonport.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: June 17, 2018
Webpage updated: June 17, 2018

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THE MILITARY IN OLD DEVONPORT

BULL POINT ROYAL ARTILLERY BARRACKS

Bull Point Royal Artillery Barracks was built between 1851 and 1855 to house the officers and soldiers of the Royal Artillery guarding the Army Ordnance Depot at Bull Point, in the ancient parish of Saint Budeaux, and to protect the Royal Dockyard from any possible enemy invasion from the north.  There was a defensive perimeter wall constructed of Plymouth limestone ashlar and rubble around the entire site.

The Guard House and entrance were on the eastern side, off the lane from Saint Budeaux to Kinterbury House.

Principle buildings within the walls were the Soldiers' Quarters to the east of which were the Officers' Quarters.  Across the Parade Ground on the southern side were a Magazine, flanked on both sides by stables and garages.  In the south-western corner was the Canteen.  At the north-eastern side was a Forage Store and on the north-western side another Magazine.

Historic England, the body now responsible for the site, which is all Grade II Listed, state that the 'entrance has a wide pediment containing a shield over a round-arched gateway with rusticated dressings and double metal doors, and smaller segmental-arched doorways each side'.

The Guard House is 'single-storey, 4-window range has deep overhanging roof to front supported on 6 slim cast-iron columns, rubbed brick heads to outer doorways and to horned 6/6-pane sashes between; the left-hand part obscured by mid-20th century extension.  The wall to the left ramps down with a moulded coping to enclose a small exercise yard, with a doorway'.

On the southern side of the Parade Ground the Magazine is described as a small brick building with end gables behind a tall ashlar wall with a central doorway with raised surround and corner piers.  The Stables and Garages on each side of the Magazine are 'partly open-fronted with timber columns, double garage doors to the left and metal-framed windows to the right'.

The two-storey Canteen is of a 5-window range.  Historic England describe it as having a 'symmetrical front with rubbed brick flat-arches to doorway with 4-pane overlight and double doors, and to horned 6/6-pane sashes'.

A building in the north-east corner of the site is a '2-storey, 1-window store, probably for forage, with a wide doorway and a small 12-pane ground floor window and upper taking-in door in the end gable',  while building in the north-west corner of the site is described as '2-storey, 1-window store, probably formerly a magazine, with steps up to an upper doorway flanked by blind slits, and an altered doorway and first-floor casement window in the end gable'.

Bull Point Royal Artillery Barracks still exists alongside Foulston Avenue.