Sunderland Barracks was a military installation in the old east end of

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

, built as part of the British response to the threat of the

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History

In early 1794 the Corporation of Sunderland petitioned for a barracks to be built in the town to protect the colliery trade from the possibility of a French attack; and they provided land for this purpose alongside the Town Moor. (At the time there were already several regiments of infantry in Sunderland, billeted in local inns and houses.) A further request in April, voicing concerns about labour unrest in the mines and rumours of a mutinous militia in

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

, resulted in the Barrack Department receiving a direct order from the

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to build barracks for a thousand men. The barracks, which were designed by Thomas Neill, were built with speed using timber construction and were ready and occupied by July that same year. They stood at one end of the High Street, which ran for almost a mile between the barracks in the east and Bishopwearmouth Church in the west. Initially, they were located at the tip of the headland where the River Wear met the sea (with a mid-18th-century gun battery positioned beyond the barracks to seaward) until, in the 1840s, Hudson Dock was built on

reclaimed land Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new Terrestrial ecoregion, land from oceans, list of seas, seas, Stream bed, riverbeds or lak ...

to the east. When opened, Sunderland Barracks included accommodation for 1,528 infantry troops, housed in 19 large barrack rooms each sleeping 36 men in double berths; there were also twenty sergeants' rooms, each with bunks for four men. In 1803 an 80-bed hospital was added. The soldiers' quarters were rebuilt using brick construction between 1826 and 1828. The 18th-century church of St John, which stood next to the barracks gates, served the barracks as a garrison church between 1823 and 1919. In 1873 a system of recruiting areas based on counties was instituted under the

Cardwell Reforms The Cardwell Reforms were a series of reforms of the British Army undertaken by Secretary of State for War Edward Cardwell between 1868 and 1874 with the support of Liberal prime minister William Ewart Gladstone. Gladstone paid little attention ...

and the barracks became the

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for the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot and the

106th Regiment of Foot (Bombay Light Infantry) The 106th Regiment of Foot (Bombay Light Infantry) was an infantry regiment of the British Army from 1862 to 1881, the third to bear the number after the Black Musqueteers (1761–1763) and a regiment raised briefly in 1794. It was formed by r ...

. Following the

Childers Reforms The Childers Reforms of 1881 reorganised the infantry regiments of the British Army. The reforms were done by Secretary of State for War Hugh Childers during 1881, and were a continuation of the earlier Cardwell Reforms. The reorganisation was ...

and the formation of the

Durham Light Infantry The Durham Light Infantry (DLI) was a light infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1968. It was formed in 1881 under the Childers Reforms by the amalgamation of the 68th (Durham) Regiment of Foot (Light Infantry) and t ...

from the amalgamation of the 68th and 106th Regiments of Foot in 1881, the Durham Light Infantry moved out of the barracks and established its depot at

Fenham Barracks Fenham Barracks is a military installation in Barrack Road, Newcastle upon Tyne. History The site was acquired by the War Office from Newcastle Corporation in 1804 and, following the construction of three barrack blocks, became the home of units ...

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

in 1884. After that the Sunderland Barracks were mainly used by

Royal Artillery The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...

units. By the turn of the century many of the barracks built in the late 18th century were in poor condition and in May 1909, the

War Office The War Office was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). This article contains text from ...

started considering disposal of the Sunderland site. The barracks were decommissioned shortly thereafter and demolished in the early 1930s to make way for Corporation Quay.

References

{{reflist Barracks in England Installations of the British Army Sunderland