Building MPM575 - PORTSMOUTH GRAMMAR SCHOOL AND ATTACHED RAILINGS

Barracks, Officer's Quarters and Mess belonging to the former Cambridge Barracks. Built c.1855-60. Part of Portsmouth Grammar School since 1926.

Formerly known as: Cambridge Barracks HIGH STREET. Barracks officers' quarters and mess, now grammar school. c1855-60, by the Inspector-General of Fortification's office; school since 1926. Yellow stock and grey bricks. Shallow pitched Welsh slate hipped roof, brick stack with moulded stone cap on left of bays 4/5, 8/9, 13/14, 18/19. Late Georgian style. PLAN: double-depth plan of 4 room units divided by chimneys and separated by transverse passages with rear doorways; former mess in deeper section at left-hand end. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and basement. 40-window range. The 2 flanking bays on each side of the central open archway, and 5 bays at each end, project slightly. At centre is a wide splayed stone-framed round archway with impost, vermiculated keystone and plinth, similar lower and narrower arched openings each side, to a vaulted through passage. On each side are eighteen 6/6 pane sashes each set under a flat-gauged brick head with stone sills; 40 similar first-floor sashes. Stone plat band, cornice with ornate stone brackets and stone coped parapet. At centre above parapet is a royal cartouche in stone with supporters. Rear has steps across basement areas up to doorways, and flat-headed 6/6 pane sashes, as the front. Officer's mess set forward with a central round-arched doorway with radial fanlights and tripartite window above. INTERIOR: has large former mess, now library, on first floor, with an axial central stair with cast-iron balusters to a central axial passage; contains original doors and plasterwork. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron spear-headed forecourt railings. HISTORY: contained officers' and servants' rooms, with kitchens and mess rooms. Portsmouth Grammar School, founded in 1732, took over the former officers' barracks in 1926. With the other sections of the old Cambridge Barracks (qqv), this is a good and complete mid C19 example. It is the only remaining one from an area just inside the old Portsmouth Lines with a large concentration of barracks in the C19, and the irregular layout is a rare survival reflecting the former cramped location of the old barracks. (Lloyd DW: Buildings of Portsmouth and its Environs: Portsmouth: 1974-: 44,47,82,83,106; The Buildings of England: Pevsner N & Lloyd DW: Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: Harmondsworth: 1967-: 448, 449).

Historic England, The National Heritage List for England (Index). SPM35.