York Historic Environment Record

Armoury, guardhouse and store, 1877-80, designed at the War Office by Major H C Seddon, RE; later alterations. Red brick with terracotta bands and stone dressings, lateral stacks and asphalt roof Fortress Tudor Gothic Revival style. PLAN: Rectangular plan with ground-floor guard room, and detention cells, corner stairs, and stores on upper floors. EXTERIOR: 3 storey; 7 -bay range with 4-stage towers. A regular block with square corner stair towers, and brick corbel cornice and crenellated parapet. Black brick bands to cills and heads, windows are 6/6-pane sashes with cambered heads and stone cills. Entrances to left return and rear with cambered-head doorways. Towers with staggered slit windows to stairs. Rear tower facing parade has a clock. INTERIOR: fireproof interior with cast-iron columns and flat ceilings, possibly replacing the earlier jack arch floors, stone closed-well stairs with stone treads. HISTORY: The Keep was a secure armoury, stores, guard house and lock up, and the characteristic building of the Localisation depots. They were part of the Cardwell reforms, which redistributed barracks around the country to encourage local connections, and assist recruitment. As such, the Keep raised the local profile of the barracks, and provided an emblematic focus for the regiment. One of only ten remaining examples of this important symbolic structure. Listed Grade II.
Listing NGR: SE6090050150

Derived from English Heritage LB download dated: 22/08/2005