Military gymnasium of c1940.

MATERIALS: it is of red brick and concrete frame construction with a clay tiled roof and steel casement windows.

PLAN: the building is formed of a principal double-height rectangular sports hall (running east/west), with a hipped roof with louvered gablets. To the west is a single-storey, flat-roofed entrance porch. To the east is a single-storey, flat-roofed equipment store (accessed from the hall). To the north is a two-storey, flat-roofed, four-bay range, which has changing rooms and stair hall at ground floor, and a gym room on the first floor; and either side is a single-storey, flat-roofed, two-bay range (containing toilets and showers to the east, and an office to the west).

EXTERIOR: the long south front of the building, faces out onto a hard sports court, with playing fields beyond. It is divided into four wide bays by brickwork piers, each bay at ground floor having a pair of half-glazed folding timber doors, each door comprised of three leaves. Above these doors is a projecting canopy set with glass blocks which are now painted over. Above the canopy, essentially forming a clerestory, are eight windows (two to a bay).

The windows throughout the building are predominantly horizontally orientated, divided vertically by two mullions into a wide central casement with a margin light to either side, and divided horizontally into four lights by glazing bars. Across the building the windows are of a similar type and style, but they vary slightly in width and therefore glazing pattern, depending on location.

The north, east and west elevations of the building are composed of red brickwork, with white-painted bands of exposed concrete framework and sills above and below the windows (the hall only having windows at clerestory level). The doors into the building via the entrance porch (to the west) and the stair hall (to the north) are glazed double doors beneath a flat projecting concrete canopy with curved corners and a reeded edge.

INTERIOR: interior walls are exposed brick (red brick to approximately 1.5m, with yellow brick above) and painted concrete structural elements. Within the hall, the exposed ceiling trusses have a shallow pitch at each end, and are horizontal at the centre, creating a shallow angular vault. Between the trusses the ceiling has been clad in a modern slatted material, probably to allow services to be installed behind. Markings on the hall floor suggest the covering is laid over the original sprung wood floor. Equipment, assumed to be original, remains, including climbing ropes suspended from the ceiling, wooden climbing bars and pairs of wooden beams on a pulley system which can be raised and lowered as needed. To the far end of the hall are solid timber sliding doors which give access to the equipment store. From the hall there is access to the stair hall to the north, from where there is access to the office (to the west), and the changing room, showers and toilets (to the east). These rooms generally have no features of note, although what are thought to be the original benches survive in the changing room, and the consistent use of cream floor tiles throughout these rooms suggest that these are also original. The stair to the first floor is a straight flight with a decorative steel
balustrade with curved back-stays and hardwood handrail. The first-floor room has a timber screen, panelled at the bottom, open at the top, which gives views down into the hall – this feature possibly replaced a more open balustrade. The ceiling has skylights formed of glass blocks as found in the canopy to the front of the building. (1) Some alterations may have taken place in the 1960s to provide additional stores. (2)

CgMs Consulting, 2014, Built Heritage Assessment, Howe Barracks, Canterbury (Unpublished document). SKE31182.

<1> English Heritage, 2013, English Heritage (Listing) Advice Report for Gymnasium, Howe Barracks, Canterbury (Unpublished document). SKE26016.