Preston Barracks was a military installation on Lewes Road,

Preston Preston is a place name, surname and given name that may refer to: Places England *Preston, Lancashire, an urban settlement **The City of Preston, Lancashire, a borough and non-metropolitan district which contains the settlement **County Boro ...

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

. All of the buildings on the site (except for the Crimean War Building) have been demolished, most recently in 2018, with mainly student residences and a retail park built on the site.

History

The barracks were built in the

regency style Regency architecture encompasses classical buildings built in the United Kingdom during the Regency era in the early 19th century when George IV was Prince Regent, and also to earlier and later buildings following the same style. The period co ...

as part of the British response to the threat of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

and were completed in 1793. The barracks were designed to accommodate artillery and cavalry units and included stables for up to 1,000 horses. The structures included a building originally built as a canteen but which was converted into a military hospital in 1820: it went on to be used as a location for various military meetings, including

courts-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

, chaired by Lieutenant-Colonel the Earl of Cardigan, who commanded the

11th Light Dragoons The 11th Hussars (Prince Albert's Own) was a cavalry regiment of the British Army established in 1715. It saw service for three centuries including the First World War and Second World War but then amalgamated with the 10th Royal Hussars (Princ ...

at the barracks in the 1840s and who then commanded the light brigade at the

Battle of Balaklava The Battle of Balaclava, fought on 25 October 1854 during the Crimean War, was part of the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55), an Allied attempt to capture the port and fortress of Sevastopol, Russia's principal naval base on the Black Sea. The eng ...

during the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

. This structure later became known as the ''Crimean War Building''. Married quarters were added in the 1850s and a new officers' mess was built in around 1900. The original regency barracks, at the southern end of the site, were largely demolished in 1990 and that part of the site is now occupied by the Pavilion Retail Park. The northern end of the site was used as a Territorial Army Centre until around 2000; it is now however largely derelict. However, the Crimean War Building survives and remains in

Ministry of Defence {{unsourced, date=February 2021 A ministry of defence or defense (see spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is an often-used name for the part of a government responsible for matters of defence, found in state ...

ownership for use as an

Army Cadet Force The Army Cadet Force (ACF), generally shortened to Army Cadets, is a national youth organisation sponsored by the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence and the British Army. Along with the Sea Cadet Corps and the Air Training Corps, the ACF mak ...

Centre. The officers' mess is also still standing but is empty. The northern end of the site was acquired by

Brighton and Hove City Council Brighton and Hove City Council is the local authority of the city of Brighton and Hove. It is a unitary authority, having the powers of a non-metropolitan county and district council combined. It provides a full range of local government services ...

in 2002: there are plans to develop this part of the site for the

University of Brighton The University of Brighton is a public university based on four campuses in Brighton and Eastbourne on the south coast of England. Its roots can be traced back to 1858 when the Brighton School of Art was opened in the Royal Pavilion. It achi ...

’s Business School. The university's vice chancellor, Debra Humphris, advocated for a £300m transformation of the barracks into student residences and the university's business school. The Preston Barracks regeneration project, nicknamed 'The Big Build', will create 369 homes, 1,338 student bedrooms, a medical centre and pharmacy, an academic building for the

, shops, cafes, sport and recreation facilities, car parking and a pedestrian bridge which will cross Lewes Road (the A270).

References

{{reflist Barracks in England Installations of the British Army Buildings and structures in Brighton and Hove