|
 Royal Artillery Barracks - Repository Road, Woolwich, London, UK
N 51° 29.093 E 000° 03.633
31U E 295917 N 5707845
The building of the Royal Artillery Barracks, in Woolwich, started in 1775. The area sprang to prominence, in 2012, as the shooting events for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games were held here along with the Paralympic archery.
Waymark Code: WMQRMA
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 03/24/2016
Views: 1
The building, that stands behind an enormous parade ground, is Grade II* listed. The entry at the Historic England website tells us:
Artillery barracks, offices and mess. E half 1775-82, W half 1802, by James Wyatt, Surveyor General, for the Board of Ordnance, right-handed damaged by bombing c1940, rebuilt c1960, interior altered and partly rebuilt mid C20. Flemish bond brick, stucco and ashlar, with slate roof Late Georgian style. Axial plan of double-depth rooms with through passages; partly rebuilt internally.
EXTERIOR: 3 storeys, attic and basement; 13:5:21:5:13:3:13:5:21:5:13-window range. A very long front of matching, sytmnetrical wings either side of a central triumphal archway, each wing consisting of three blocks with a brick plat band, cornice and parapet, central round-arched doorways in matching recesses with steps up to 6-panel doors with radial fanlights, and rubbed brick flat arches to 6/6-pane sashes. Each wing has outer blocks with raised 2-window ends with balustraded attic storeys, and central lower 2-storey sections with 9 flat-headed lead-clad dormers. The central blocks have pedimented central 5-window sections crowned by square, domed belcotes with louvred round-arched sides, and with secondary flat-headed doorways 4 bays from the ends: the left-hand pediment contains a wind dial, and the right-hand one a clock. Linking these three blocks are stuccoed 2-storey sections set back, with a thin cornice and parapet, a ground floor with a Tuscan colonnade to an entablature and balustrade, and a flat-headed doorway with overlights and 6/6-pane sashes, and first floors articulated by pilasters, with flat-headed windows with radial bars in the top sashes. The right-hand linking section in the left-hand wing has its colonade set forward and infilled with late C20 plate glass, and blind first-floor windows. The central 3-storey triumphal arch has attached Roman Doric columns on pedestals to a projecting entablature, attic storey with a central swagged portrait panel of Queen Victoria inscribed VR 1858, cornice and parapet, and 4 fu1l-height trophies of arms above the columns and a gilded royal coat of arms in the centre; the middle bay has a tall round archway, with lower archways in the outer bays, and round sunken panels above. The archway has a coffered ceiling and a decorative iron lamp, and the main and side arches have swept iron gates with spear finials to the rear. Attached C20 iron railinsa to the basement area.
INTERIOR: the barracks originally had back-to-back heated rooms either side of a spine wall, and lateral dogleg stairs; largely rebuilt internally. The most complete interior is the officers' mess, which has a dining room with an early C19 decorative scheme with marble fireplaces, enriched plaster walls and ceiling, Doric pilasters and frieze and a distyle in antis division, doors with 8 raised panels, architraves and enriched friezes above.
HISTORY: essentially six late C18-style barracks linked together to form a more striking composition. Formerly including a theatre to the right-hand range, and rear courtyards laid out as a Roman military town with a cross of main roads ending in triumphal arches and including three riding schools, lecture rooms and stables (all demolished). This was one of the largest sites for military accommodation of its day in England. Shares a compositional system with Wyatt's other large artillery barracks at Brompton to create a more impressive facade. The officers' mess contains the best surviving barracks interior from its period, within one of the finest examples of military architecture in the country.
The Royal Borough of Greenwich website tells us:
The King's Troop in Woolwich
The King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery took up residence in a new purpose-built state-of-the-art equestrian training facility and accommodation centre in Woolwich Garrison in February 2012. The troop formerly lived in St John's Wood, north-west London.
A return to the spiritual home
The arrival of the King's Troop back in Woolwich built on links between the military and Royal Greenwich dating back three centuries. As a result of the move to Woolwich, the troop's First World War-era field guns have been returned to the home of the Royal Arsenal, where they were built, and the Royal Artillery, for whom they were made.
The King's Troop is a British Army mounted ceremonial unit that fires royal salutes on royal anniversaries and state occasions, including birthdays and funerals. The unit's soldiers drive a team of six magnificent horses that pull each of the six First World War-era field guns. They also mount the Queen's life guard at Horse Guards each summer. The King's Troop also have a vital operational role, with soldiers recently deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.
The unit comprises of 109 horses, seven officers and 164 soldiers.
The British Army's largest forge
The King's Troop's new facility at Napier Lines boasts extensive outdoor training areas, an indoor riding school, a veterinary clinic, stabling for 140 horses, a saddlers' workshop, a tailors' workshop and the largest, most modern blacksmith's forge in the British Army.
Napier Lines has been designed to be eco-friendly, and a biomass boiler will generate renewable energy to provide heating and hot water from the 40 tonnes of waste produced by the horses and stables each week.
King's Troop facts
-
The King's Troop forge is the current reigning champion of the London Cup and Inter-regimental Farriery Competition.
-
The forge shoes over 70 horses a week.
-
The Napier Lines facility aims to be carbon-neutral.
-
Every item of leather work worn by the horses is hand-stitched.
-
It takes four to five years to become a fully trained military saddler.
-
Each of the troop's six 13-pounder field guns was used in the First World War, and some were also brought out of store for use as emergency anti-tank guns for home defence in the Second World War.
-
Prior to a salute or parade, it takes 15 cans of wood polish, seven tubes of metal polish, a can of linseed oil, four cans of penetrating oil and 13 man-hours to turn out a gun and limber.
-
The majority of parts required for the guns can no longer be sourced and so must be hand-machined by highly skilled soldiers from the Royal Electrical Mechanical Engineers (REME).
Wikipedia has an article about the Royal Artillery Barracks that tells us:
The Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich in the Royal Borough of Greenwich in London, was the home of the Royal Artillery.
The Barracks were built between 1776 and 1802 on a site overlooking Woolwich Common to accommodate the nascent Royal Artillery, which was fast outgrowing its barracks in the Warren. As originally built (1774-6) the barracks frontage was only half the present length, being the eastern half of the current south elevation (with the pediment and clock positioned centrally). Twenty-five years later, when further expansion was required, it was resolved to double the frontage by building an identical façade to the west (with a wind-dial in place of the clock). The architect James Wyatt then married the two halves together with a centerpiece triumphal arch.
Behind the south frontage, the barracks were laid out on a grid pattern, and included soldiers' accommodation, officers' quarters, the officers' mess, a chapel and a library with ancillary buildings further behind along with stores and stables for the horse artillery. Several of these buildings were altered over time or entirely replaced in one of a number of refurbishment programmes; Wyatt's officers' mess remains in situ. For many years the 17.75-ton Bhurtpore gun, captured by Lord Combermere after the 1826 siege of Bhurtpore, stood outside the barracks.
Since the nineteenth century, the appropriateness of Woolwich as a base for the Artillery had been questioned. Suggestions of a move came to nothing until a Defence Estates Review in 2003 proposed a move to Larkhill on Salisbury Plain (where the Royal School of Artillery has been based since 1915). After very nearly 300 years in Woolwich, the last Artillery regiment left the barracks in July 2007. Its place was taken by the public duties line infantry battalion and incremental companies of the Foot Guards (who moved in from Chelsea Barracks and Cavalry Barracks). Soon afterwards, the Second Battalion The Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment was posted to Woolwich from Cyprus. Then in 2012, an artillery link was regained when the King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery moved from the St John's Wood Barracks to new quarters and stables on the Woolwich site, bringing with them a complement of 120 or thereabouts horses, historic gun carriages and artillery pieces used for their displays.
The shooting events at the 2012 Summer Olympics and Paralympics were held at a temporary venue at the Barracks. The original plan to conduct the shooting at the National Shooting Centre at Bisley, Surrey, was changed after the International Olympic Committee expressed reservations about the number of sports proposed to be staged outside London.
In May 2013 drummer Lee Rigby was murdered by Islamists just outside the Barracks in a terrorist attack.
Visit Instructions:
Please provide another photo of the location. You don't have to be in there shot, but you can. The photo requirement is to discourage any armchair visiting.
Recent Visits/Logs:
| There are no logs for this waymark yet. |
|
|
|
|