Cambridge Barracks was a military installation at

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

History

The barracks were created by converting some late-18th century warehouses into military accommodation in 1825. The site had previously been a large timber-yard and carpenters' workshops; it was purchased by the government during the

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

and converted into an 'immense' stores complex for the

Commissariat A commissariat is a department or organization commanded by a commissary or by a corps of commissaries. In many countries, commissary is a police rank. In those countries, a commissariat is a police station commanded by a commissary. In some ar ...

(responsible for supplying food, fuel and forage to the troops). These former warehouses are still in place, forming an asymmetrical open courtyard at the south-west end of what is now

Portsmouth Grammar School The Portsmouth Grammar School is a co-educational independent day school in Portsmouth, England, located in the historic part of Portsmouth. It was founded in 1732 as a boys' school and is located on Portsmouth High Street. History In 1732, ...

: they stand three storeys high and originally contained open-plan store rooms accessed through external hoist doors on each storey. In October 1825 each floor was converted to form barrack rooms; the 9th Regiment (Fusileers) was the first to occupy the new barracks. At that time a guard-house formed the fourth side of the quadrangle. In 1856-58 the barracks were extended and enhanced to create accommodation for regiments in transit for operations overseas. An officers' quarters was built, fronting on to the High Street, with a large

officers' mess The mess (also called a mess deck aboard ships) is a designated area where military personnel socialize, eat and (in some cases) live. The term is also used to indicate the groups of military personnel who belong to separate messes, such as the o ...

on the first floor. At some distance behind it (so as to form a sizeable

parade ground A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of s ...

) a long, three-storey soldiers' barracks was erected, containing a series of back-to-back barrack rooms either side of a central office section, with a cook-house at the south-west end linking it to the older barrack blocks. It was at around this time that the barracks were named after

Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, (Adolphus Frederick; 24 February 1774 – 8 July 1850) was the tenth child and seventh son of the British king George III and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. He held the title of Duke of Cambridge from 18 ...

who had recently died. Subsequently a two-storey block was built, between the old barracks quadrangle and the new officers' quarters, containing offices for the Commanding Officer and others. In January 1887 there was a serious gas explosion at the site in which five members of the

Worcestershire Regiment The Worcestershire Regiment was a line infantry regiment in the British Army, formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 29th (Worcestershire) Regiment of Foot and the 36th (Herefordshire) Regiment of Foot. The regimen ...

died and fourteen were injured. The 1st Battalion, the

Northumberland Fusiliers The Royal Northumberland Fusiliers was an infantry regiment of the British Army. Raised in 1674 as one of three 'English' units in the Dutch Anglo-Scots Brigade, it accompanied William III to England in the November 1688 Glorious Revolution an ...

was in transit at the barracks when the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

broke out in August 1914. The barracks became disused and fell derelict after the First World War. The officers' quarters were acquired by

in 1926. The soldiers' barracks blocks were initially amalgamated into the adjacent

Clarence Barracks Clarence Barracks was a military installation at Portsmouth, Hampshire. History The original site for what became Clarence Barracks was the early 17th-century King's Cooperage in Old Portsmouth, owned and operated by the Victualling Commissioner ...

; later, they too were acquired by the school, which now covers the entire former barracks site. The school library occupies the former officers' mess.

History

References

Further reading