TM 9924 SW COLCHESTER LE CATEAU ROAD (North West side) Colchester Garrison 584/18/10012 Former Riding School, Le Cateau Barracks GV II Riding school. 1860. Brick with yellow brick dressings, and a slate roof. Rectangular plan. EXTERIOR: single storey; 14-bay range. The sides articulated by full-height buttresses, each bay with an upper segmental-arched 6-light window with transom, and alternate red and yellow brick voussoirs, North East end has an oculus, and wide double doors, with a lower 3-window range office block with hipped roof attached, plate-glass sashes, and a door in the right-hand end. South West end has a tall round-arched upper doorway. INTERIOR: has metal trusses with wrought-iron ties and paired struts, with battered panels to lower walls to prevent horses becoming trapped; a window looks down from the front office. HISTORY: riding schools were an important part of cavalry barracks throughout the C19 for exercising and practicing manoeuvres. This example is included as part of a near complete complex, the most important remaining one of its type on an English barracks. Le Cateau was the first permanent barracks at Colchester, and is the last surviving example of the new layout of cavalry b;}l-racks first developed at Aldershot in the 1850s, for large-scale training. (Dietz P: Garrison: Ten Military Towns: London: 1986-: 3; 1863-: CTR 130-158; Papers of the Royal Engineers: Ewart CB Colonel: Military Riding Schools: Chatham: 1862-: 22 June). Listing NGR: TL9923024389