Raglan Barracks Gatehouse, also referred to as Raglan Guardhouse or Raglan Main Gateway was the main gateway into Raglan Barracks and is the only part of the barracks remaining. This striking military building, in the heart of the recently regenerated area of Devonport, was built between 1853 and 1858 during the time of the Crimean War and was named after one of the Allied commanders of that conflict, Lord Raglan. The impressive gateway remains a well-known landmark in the local area perhaps because of its striking symmetrical design, which was the first commission for the Royal Engineer, Captain Fowke, an eminent architect of his time who later became famous for designing the Royal Albert Hall.
After a long-standing military career, the barracks were deemed outdated, and demolition was mooted in 1936 but this was delayed due to the outbreak of the Second World War. The demolition of the barracks wasn’t carried out until the late 1960s/early 1970s leaving the Gatehouse, standing on its own, completely out of context. It became a Grade II Listed building in 1975, after which the old site was used to build military residential accommodation.
These married quarters, however, do not seem to have been widely used and in 1991 the Ministry of Defence released the Gatehouse for sale on the open market in 1991. The building has since changed hands several times over the last few decades and has suffered the consequences of this. Due to years of misuse and neglect the Gatehouse was placed on the Buildings at Risk Register for the third time in 2005.
The current owner is to change the fate of this iconic Plymouth building by sensitively converting it into high end accommodation. The development seeks to retain as much of the original structure as possible and to develop the site in such a way as to reinstate the sense of place that the Gatehouse would once have commanded in times gone by. By responding to both the new grain of residential streets and the old grain of processional trees and parade grounds, it will include the conversion of the Gatehouse into four duplex apartments and the building of four mews houses constructed on Madden Road.