Victoria 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 ...

. It was sometimes known as Victoria Barracks,

Southsea Southsea is a seaside resort and a geographic area of Portsmouth, Portsea Island in England. Southsea is located 1.8 miles (2.8 km) to the south of Portsmouth's inner city-centre. Southsea is not a separate town as all of Portsea Island's s ...

History

The barracks, begun in 1880 and built by convict labour, were designed to provide living accommodation for a regiment of infantry. Located on the Southsea side of

Old Portsmouth Old Portsmouth is a district of the city of Portsmouth. It is the area covered by the original medieval town of Portsmouth as planned by Jean de Gisors. It is situated in the south west corner of Portsea Island. The area contains many historic bu ...

, outside the old town fortifications (which were in the process of being demolished at the time), they were completed in 1886. They consisted of a pair of long barrack ranges, linked by arcades at either end to form a narrow quadrangle, with a separate Officers' Quarters and Mess Establishment to the south-west: 'a highly Picturesque, free-style composition, very un-English, which included a central clock tower, stairs in detached, conical turrets, and a billiard room in a sort of Great Hall at the back'. The first unit to arrive was the 1st Battalion, the

South Lancashire Regiment The South Lancashire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army in existence from 1881 to 1958. The regiment, which recruited, as its title suggests, primarily from the South Lancashire area, was created as part of the Childers Ref ...

(who were transferred there gradually, as the buildings were completed, from the old

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 ...

which lay within the

lines Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

).Smythies, p. 438 The plans for the officers' quarters (dated 1885) suggest that it was intended to transfer the name Clarence Barracks to the new buildings, but in the event the name Victoria Barracks was used. (Clarence became the designation of a new Artillery barracks, begun in 1890; these were built alongside Victoria Barracks to the west, in place of the old barracks and over the now-demolished fortifications). Between the new Clarence and Victoria Barracks a large parade ground was laid out. The central tower of the Officers' Quarters was hit by a bomb and seriously damaged during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The nearby Guard House was also bomb damaged, and subsequently rebuilt. After the war the barracks were taken over by the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

and used for seven years as a training establishment for new recruits. The buildings were eventually demolished in 1967. The site was subsequently developed for residential use and is now known as Pembroke Park.

References

External links

Photo: officers' quarters (left), guard house and soldiers' barracks (right)

Photo: the main (soldiers') barracks blocks

Sources

*{{cite book, last=Smythies , first=Captain Raymond R. H. , year=1894, title=Historical Records of the 40th (2nd Somersetshire) Regiment, publisher= Devonport: A. H. Swiss, url=https://archive.org/stream/historicalrecor00smytgoog#page/n26/mode/2up Barracks in England Installations of the British Army