The Longden Coleham drill hall is a former military installation in

Shrewsbury Shrewsbury ( , also ) is a market town, civil parish, and the county town of Shropshire, England, on the River Severn, north-west of London; at the 2021 census, it had a population of 76,782. The town's name can be pronounced as either 'Sh ...

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

History

The building was designed for the Shropshire Rifle Volunteers and was completed in around 1865. The unit evolved to become the 1st Volunteer Battalion, The

King's Shropshire Light Infantry The King's Shropshire Light Infantry (KSLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army, formed in the Childers Reforms of 1881, but with antecedents dating back to 1755. It served in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. In 196 ...

in 1883 and the 4th Battalion, The King's Shropshire Light Infantry in 1908. The battalion was mobilised at the drill hall in August 1914 before being deployed to

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. A Squadron,

Shropshire Yeomanry The Shropshire Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army, first raised in 1795, which served as a cavalry and dismounted infantry regiment in the First World War and as a cavalry and an artillery regiment in the Second World War. It ...

were also based at the drill hall at the time of 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 ...

. Following the cut-backs to the Territorial Army in 1967, 4th Battalion, The King's Shropshire Light Infantry evolved to become the 5th Battalion,

The Light Infantry The Light Infantry was an infantry regiment of the British Army, part of the Light Division. The regiment was one of four 'large' regiments formed after the 1966 Defence White Paper through the amalgamation of units of the Light Infantry Brigad ...

in 1972 and the 5th (Shropshire and Herefordshire) Battalion, The Light Infantry (Volunteers) in 1988. After the unit moved to the present Copthorne Road

Army Reserve A military reserve force is a military organization whose members have military and civilian occupations. They are not normally kept under arms, and their main role is to be available when their military requires additional manpower. Reserve ...

Centre in the early 1990s, the Longden Coleham drill hall was decommissioned and acquired by Barnabas Community Church.

References

{{reflist Buildings and structures in Shrewsbury Drill halls in England