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Summary

Description

Circa 1880. Group of 7 single storey simple Tudor buildings forming barracks, with distinctive tall steeply pitched gables with decorative bargeboards. Pink and grey coursed granite rubble with sandstone dressings. Base course. Very low overhanging eaves, decorative crown profile ridge detail. Banded slate roofs. Stone mullions and transoms. 4 buildings to E, caretaker's house to NE, guardroom to NW, Officers' Mess to SW. Late 20th century accommodation block to W. Situated to NE of town, with large Victorian villas around.

FURTHER DESCRIPTION: Caretaker's House at entrance to E, 5-bay with near centre boarded timber door with rectangular fanlight above. To right, tripartite window with granite mullions, to far right, advanced lower gable with deeply recessed 2-pane fixed light window in wide pointed arch; similar at far left. Bipartite and tripartite windows with granite mullions.

OFFICES, MESS BLOCKS AND KITCHENS: 4 buildings, all of a similar plan, situated to E. To W, central boarded timber doors with piended porches supported by timber brackets resting on stone corbels. To N, 3-bay. Advanced gable to right with tripartite window with granite mullions and transom and blind arrow slit above.

Predominantly timber sash and case windows, some uPVC. Grey and green graded and banded slating. Variety of ridge and external stacks some with octagonal cans. Grey painted cast iron down pipes, some square with decorative hoppers.

INTERIOR: extensively modernised. Simple cornicing in Officer's mess. Vaulted cell in guardroom building.

BOUNDARY WALLS: high, coursed granite rubble with granite coping. Surmounted by 20th century metal security fence.

Statement of Special Interest

Crown Property. This is a particularly striking Barracks complex, especially distinguished by their steeply pitched roofs, decorative bargeboards and deeply recessed Tudor windows. They are a distinctive addition to the streetscape of the town. The barracks in Ballater houses the bodyguard for the Royal family when they are resident at Balmoral. Founded in the 1860s to provide a bodyguard for Queen Victoria when the Royal Family visited Balmoral, the original timber barracks were built behind Glenmuick Parish Church in the main square of the town. These were then superseded by the present ones in the 1880s to provide more spacious and permanent accommodation. The barracks remained in active use throughout the First and Second World War. One local story suggests that the plans for these barracks were mixed up with plans for a barracks in India and these barracks were built to the Indian design.

References

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