Listed Building: THE ROYAL MARINES MUSEUM (1387090)

Includes: The Royal Marines Museum EASTNEY ESPLANADE. Officers' quarters and mess, now museum. c1865, designed by William Scamp, for the Admiralty Works Department; converted 1980s. Red brick in Flemish bond with yellow brick frieze and rusticated quoins and pilasters; ashlar faced centrepiece and ground and 1st-floor bands, cornice, blocking course and coping. Slate roofs, hipped at centre, mansard over wings, with deep multi-flue corniced cross-ridge chimneys. PLAN: double-depth plan with a large central stair hall. EXTERIOR: 3 storeys with basement and attic. Centrepiece, of 7 bays, is slightly recessed and has Tuscan-pilastered Italianate galleries to ground and 1st floors. Galleries segmental-arched on ground floor, round-arched above, and on 1st floor having double-pilastered slightly-projecting centre; architraves with imposts and console keystones; balustrade across arches and above entablature forming 2nd-floor balcony. Imperial stair (with 2 flights becoming one) with similar balustrade rises to 1st floor entrance which has part-glazed double-door and side-lights. Tripartite sashes to ground floor; round-arched sashes to 1st and 2nd floors, the latter in keyed architraves. Eaves cornice with central console-bracketed pediment which is carved with Royal Coat of Arms and initials and signed "C.R. Smith". Side-wings of 8 bays each have innermost 3 bays breaking forward slightly and 4-pane sashes in reveals with segmental brick arches. Rear: central block, of 2 storeys, projects and has full-height 3-bay bow. INTERIOR: lavish, including panelled doors in enriched architraves; decorative fireplaces; ceilings, some compartmental, with decorative friezes, cornices and plasterwork. Of particular note is the former dining room, which has decorative pilasters; a heavy coved ceiling with rich plaster decoration and chandelier roundels; and a triple entrance with arches above giving onto a minstrels' gallery. Also of special note is the stair hall in which rises a cantilevered stone Imperial stair, the elaborate balustrade alternately having columnar balusters supporting spheres depicting the world and balusters formed of decorative openwork panels with a fouled anchor at the base; at foot of stair carved columns support lamps. The decorative motifs and features make use of symbols associated with and the motto of the Royal Marines who originally occupied the barracks. HISTORY: the centrepiece of this complete Marines barracks, and among the most architecturally distinguished officers' barracks in England. William Scamp was the assistant director of the Admiralty Works Department, and associated with works in the Royal Dockyards at this time. The carefully laid-out site beside the seashore reflects its use by Marines; it is also the last large defensible barracks in the country. Part of the best and most complete barracks of the post-Crimean war period. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Lloyd D: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1985-: 429-430; PSA Drawings Collection, NMR, Swindon: 1866-: PTM/2153-2167). Selected Sources Books and journals Pevsner, N, Lloyd, D, The Buildings of England: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, (1985), 429,430