Barrack Road, Fenham Barracks, officers' mess

This building was listed Grade II in 1971 with the following description:
'Artillery barracks officers' mess; now student accommodation. 1804-06, by James Wyatt, Surveyor General to the Ordnance Board, converted c1994. English bond brick with brown sandstone dressings, brick ridge stacks and slate hipped valley roof. Late Georgian style. Single-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys and basement; 7-window range. Symmetrical front with ashlar basement and plinth, first-floor cill band and eaves frieze and cornice, with the 1-window end sections set forward; central entrance has Tuscan columns to entablature blocks with Royal Artillery shields and an open pediment, in front of a round-arched doorway on pilasters with a radial fanlight and late C20 6-panel door. Round-arched late C20 ground-floor horned 6/6-pane sashes, the end ones set within matching arched recesses, and segmental-arched first-floor horned 2/2-pane sashes; matching rear has a central round-arched stair light over the entrance which cuts through the cill band. 3-bay returns have openings at the front, the outer ones blind, and the middle ground-floor window set within a round-arched recess. INTERIOR: Completely rebuilt c1994. HISTORY: The Ordnance Board were responsible during the Napoleonic War for Artillery barracks. One of the earliest surviving officers' messes in the country, the only example of a stone barracks from this period, and with the sergeants' mess and guard houses (qqv) a small part of the former Fenham Artillery Barracks. (Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th series: Breihan J: Army Barracks in the NE in the Era of the French Revolution: 1990-: 171).'