British Listed Buildings

Listing Text

GILLINGHAM

TQ76NE PRINCE ARTHUR ROAD, Brompton
686-1/7/38 (West side)
Royal Engineers' Museum, Brompton
Barracks

II

Also known as: Ravelin Building PRINCE ARTHUR ROAD Brompton.
Electrical engineer's school, now museum. 1904, by Major E C S
Moore RE, converted to a museum 1987. Red brick with Portland
stone dressings and a slate roof.
PLAN: quadrangular.
EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 11-bay range. A symmetrical front has
3-storey square towers set forward flanking the entrance and
outer corner bays broken forward, a rock-faced stone plinth,
the facade divided by cill and lintel bands, cornice and coped
parapet, and pilaster strips and narrower jamb strips between
the windows; the parapet ramps up to the corners and over the
pilasters, and the matching towers have cornices between the
floors. Corner and central towers have drums with ashlar domes
and finials.
An elaborate entrance bay has a 3-bay ground-floor with thick
Doric columns on tall plinths to heavy brackets and a
full-width balcony and balustrade, to round-arched doorway
with panelled double doors and fanlight, and a wide
first-floor lunette divided by mullions and transom. Windows
have metal frames. A late C20 barrel-vaulted lantern to the
central quadrangle visible above the entrance.
11-bay sides with rear, slightly taller, corner towers and
domes, the left-hand return has a central round-arched
carriage entrance.
Rear has a full-width lower range with coped end gables, ridge
lantern, round-arched windows connected by a hood mould, a
left-hand carriage entrance and 2 altered mid C20 vehicle
entrances.
INTERIOR: includes a fine entrance hall with large Imperial
stair each side with moulded soffit, elaborate moulded newels
and balusters and curtail, Jacobethan-style strapwork
panelling, 5-panel doors with eared architraves and pediments
with scrolled tympana, and plaster ceiling in panels; a 3-bay
screen of thick columns on tall plinths has carved terms
above.
HISTORY: formerly with a square chimney to the inner
courtyard, now glazed-in; the domes were designed to mount
searchlights.
A large and decorative institute, illustrative of the Royal


Engineers' extensive architectural work.
(A Guide to the Royal Engineers Museum: RE Museum: 1993-).



Listing NGR: TQ7635168979

This text is a legacy record and has not been updated since the building was originally listed. Details of the building may have changed in the intervening time. You should not rely on this listing as an accurate description of the building.

Source: English Heritage

Listed building text is © Crown Copyright. Reproduced under licence.