Building record 86/1/39 - Former Weedon Barracks, west magazine of series of four magazines in magazine enclosure

{1} Magazine. Early/mid C19. Red brick, slate roofs. 2-unit plan. Stone coped gables. Brick vaulted interiors.

{3} One of four paired magazines built 1807-11 within the Magazine Enclosure at Weedon Bec. Flemish bond brick on rendered plinth with chamfered sandstone top course; dentilled eaves courses to side elevations. Stone-coped gables. Rectangular plan, with two vaulted chambers. Double-gabled elevations to north and south, with segmental arches of gauged brick to doorways in centre of each. Late C20 doors and windows, the latter replacing original ventilators. Side elevations have perforated wrought-iron plates to ventilators, which are baffled internally. Interior: catenary arches to each chamber, with some arched access doorways between.

Part of a unique planned military-industrial complex, complete with its own defensible transport system and surrounding walls. Although the magazines (drawings of 1816 in Royal Engineers Library, W140 (D38), and later plans and drawings also archived there) are smaller in terms of their individual scale than the late 18th century example at Priddy's Hard opposite the naval dock at Portsmouth (listed grade I and like the Weedon examples built to the distinctive British double-vaulted plan), as a group they had no rival until the suite of traversed magazines were built at Bull Point, Plymouth, in the 1850s (Scheduled Ancient Monument). Catenary arches were first used at Tipnor in the 1790s and then Colonel D'Arcy's magazine at Upnor. The use of traverses makes the group highly innovatory in terms of its planning, blast walls of earth (sometimes faced in brick) being henceforth a characteristic features of magazine complexes. These traverses have also uniquely assumed an architectural form.

For full details of the site see description of Storehouse No 2.

{4} Powder magazines and blast houses (building numbers 21 to 18 inclusive). Traces of olive green/grey camouflage paint visible on the brick east and west elevations of these buildings but appears absent from the north and south elevations and probably also from building number 29, the westermost of the powder magazines. The painting takes the form of large rounded forms, different on each elevation. Presumed of WWI, or more likely WW2 origin?

{6} Undated photo;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 16/189 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F06 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN44900.

<3> ENGLISH HERITAGE, Ongoing, National Heritage List for England, (checked) (Website). SNN107872.

<4> Cadman, G., 1996, Oral Report to SMR, (checked) (Oral Report). SNN109141.

<5> Cadman G., 2014, 20th Century Military Archaeology in Northamptonshire: Logs 1, 2 & 3, p.29 (checked) (Report). SNN104868.

<6> Photographs of buildings in Weedon Bec (Photographs). SNN114204.

Record last edited

Oct 12 2022 2:02PM