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A guardhouse (also known as a watch house, guard building, guard booth, guard shack, security booth, security building, or sentry building) is a building used to house personnel and security equipment. Guardhouses have historically been dormitories for sentries or guards, and places where sentries not posted to sentry posts wait "on call", but are more recently staffed by a contracted security company. Some guardhouses also function as jails.


Modern guardhouses

In 21st century commercial, industrial, institutional, governmental, or residential facilities, Guardhouses are generally placed at the entrance as checkpoints for securing, monitoring and maintaining access control into the secured facility. In the case of small to mid-sized facilities, generally, the entire
physical security Physical security describes security measures that are designed to deny unauthorized access to facilities, equipment and resources and to protect personnel and property from damage or harm (such as espionage, theft, or terrorist attacks). Physica ...
envelope is controlled from the Guardhouse. One of the general orders of a sentry in the United States Navy and Marine corps is to "Repeat all calls more distant from the guardhouse than my own." Guardhouses thus serve as central communications hubs for outlying sentry posts, being where the Corporal of the Guard is stationed. When sentries are relieved by their replacements, the sentry stationed at the Guardhouse, designated "No. 1", is conventionally relieved first. Modern guardhouses are manufactured with welded, galvanized steel construction, insulated, include heat and light, have 360 degree visibility, and can also be bullet resistant. These guardhouses keep security guards comfortable as well as secure. The first modern guardhouse was manufactured by Par-Kut International in 1954. In 21st century, guardhouses have provided more options such as exterior floodlights, reflective bullet resistant glass, gun ports, elevated platforms, and highly mobile trailer mounting, anti fatigue floor mats, dimmable interior light and a built in bathroom.


Historical guardhouses

In the
Fortress of Louisbourg The Fortress of Louisbourg (french: Forteresse de Louisbourg) is a National Historic Site and the location of a one-quarter partial reconstruction of an 18th-century French fortress at Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. Its two siege ...
in the 18th century, Guardhouses were where sentries were stationed to eat and sleep between periods of sentry duty at the 21 sentry posts around the town. The town had five Guardhouses (the Dauphine Gate, the townside entrance to the King's Bastion, the Queen's Gate, the Maurepas Gate, and the Pièce de la Grave), and whilst not sleeping sentries would be "on call" from those Guardhouses at need. In the Guardhouse at
Fort Scott National Historic Site Fort Scott National Historic Site is a historical area under the control of the United States National Park Service in Bourbon County, Kansas, United States. Named after General Winfield Scott, who achieved renown during the Mexican–American ...
, typical furnishings for guard quarters included benches, tables, shelves, a platform bed for the men resting between assignments, arms racks, a fireplace or stove, and leather buckets (used for firefighting - another duty of guards). Prison cells were unfurnished, containing simply a slop bucket and iron rings on walls for the attachment of shackles., kabtechusa.com


See also

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Gatehouse A gatehouse is a type of fortified gateway, an entry control point building, enclosing or accompanying a gateway for a town, religious house, castle, manor house, or other fortification building of importance. Gatehouses are typically the mo ...
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Neue Wache The Neue Wache ( en, New Guard) is a listed building on Unter den Linden boulevard in the historic centre of Berlin, Germany. Erected from 1816 to 1818 according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel as a guardhouse for the Royal Palace and a memor ...
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Kōban A is a small neighborhood police station found in Japan. The term also refers to the smallest organizational unit in a modern Japanese Prefectural police department. Small kōban buildings, staffed by uniformed officers at around 6,000 locatio ...
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The Guardhouse The Guardhouse () is located in the Livingston Range, Glacier National Park in the U.S. state of Montana. The Guardhouse is situated on the Continental Divide. Geology Like other mountains in Glacier National Park, the peak is composed of sedim ...
, a mountain in Montana *
Guard tower A guard tower is any military tower used for guarding an area. These towers are usually operated by military personnel, and are structures built in areas of established control. These include military bases and cities occupied by military forces. ...
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Sentry box A sentry box is a small shelter with an open front in which a sentry or person on guard duty may stand to be sheltered from the weather. Many boxes are decorated in national colours. Compare: In literature The sentry box at the entrance to Buck ...


References


Further reading

* - a description of the guardhouse at
Colonial Williamsburg Colonial Williamsburg is a living-history museum and private foundation presenting a part of the historic district in the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has 7300 employees at this location a ...
* * - a description of the guardhouse at Arsenal Technical High School, tracing its history from being a combined guardhouse and jail for the U.S. Army barracks through being a school "beanery" to its current function as a school security office * - an archaeological report on the guardhouse at the Macquarie Street entrance of the Lancer Barracks in
Parramatta, New South Wales Parramatta () is a suburb and major commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the banks of the Parramatta Riv ...
* - an extract from the Fort Concho Medical History Record of May 1871, describing in detail the now nonexistent guardhouse {{Commons