14 July 2024

Photos winter 2021; a big severe bluestone thing half hiding behind trees and creeper and shadows, not the best pics. Anyway, the front ‘A Block’ was built 1860-1867, designed by Gustav Joachimi of the Public Works Department in a very restrained Italianate style, with no decoration whatsoever, and multiple entrances for some reason. It housed the local British garrison until 1870, then various local militia and related bodies, then in 1901 it became the national HQ of the Australian Defence Force.

A new wing was added to the north in 1918 in pretty much matching style (pic 5), except set forward, and the set back join is in the stylised Georgian favoured by Victorian Commonwealth architect JS Murdoch. This wing contains a War Cabinet room where important decisions were made during both world wars. Defence HQ moved to Canberra in 1958, but still occupy the building, as well as the equally central and notable Victoria Barracks in Sydney.

This castley wall is sitting in some lawn behind the Victoria Barracks, and it’s called ‘the keep’, one of the few remnants of the high bluestone wall that once surrounded the barracks. It was built c1860, and though it’s a traditional defensive thing, complete with crenellations, it was more decorative than functional – after all the front building had 5 doors and lots of windows. Behind it is ‘G Block’, built the same time, very plain, possibly the actual barracks. Only old photo of the whole place I could find is an aerial from the 1940s, showing a lot more buildings than now, most of the wall already gone I think.

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