TM 9924 SE COLCHESTER LE CATEAU ROAD (North side) Colchester Garrison 584/18/10014 Former Sergeants' Mess, Le Cateau Barracks GV II Sergeant's mess. c1861. Red brick with yellow brick and limestone dressings, brick ridge and lateral stacks and slate cross-gable roof Single-depth T-shaped plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys; 2:3-window range. Projecting left-hand gable, yellow brick plinth, cill and lintel bands, brick eaves cornice and coped gables, ashlar flat heads to 6/6-pane sashes, which are paired on the ground floor of the projecting gable, beneath a tripartite upper window with Caenarvon arch containing simple plate tracery. A single-storey porch in the re-entrant has a raking roof and plane flat-headed doorway. Roof has a square lantern with pyramidal roof and finial. INTERIOR: not inspected. HISTORY: Part of the Le Cateau barracks, which were the first permanent barracks at Colchester camp. The Gothic detail exhibits an unusually ornamental approach to barracks design. Le Cateau is the last surviving example of the new layout of cavalry barracks developed at Aldershot in the 1850s for large scale training camps. (PSA Drawings Collection, NMR, Swindon: Colchester: CTR 130-158; Dietz P: Garrison Ten British Military Towns: London: 1986-: 3-22). Listing NGR: TL9927524451