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Statutory Address:
GIBRALTAR BARRACKS THE KEEP, OUT RISBYGATE
Listed Building Grade: II
List Entry Number: 1244805 Date first listed: 14/09/1992
Date of most recent amendment: 30/10/1997
National Grid Reference: TL84296 64526
Gibraltar Barracks has been the home of the Regiment since 1878 after the 15 acre site had been purchased by the War Office.
As part of his far-reaching Army reforms in the 1870s, Edward Cardwell, the Secretary of State for War, proposed to divide the country into 66 infantry districts, each of which would have a regimental depot. The object was to link infantry regiments with their localities, encourage recruitment locally, provide an administrative centre and better facilities for training and help link the Regular Army with the Militia. Although the West Suffolk Militia already had a depot in Bury (the site of Yeomanry Yard, off King’s Rd), it was decided to build a new depot which would accommodate the Militia and the 12th (East Suffolk) Regiment (which in 1881 would become the Suffolk Regiment).
The complex was named Gibraltar Barracks in 1938, after the first of the Regiment’s Battle Honors. Until the 1939-1945 War, the Barracks remained the Depot of the Suffolk Regiment. From then until 1959, this role was largely taken over by Blenheim Camp, with the Keep continuing to serve as the Armoury and Quartermaster’s Stores. This arrangement continued after 1959 with the two sites acting as the Depot for the 1st East Anglian Regiment and after 1964, the Royal Anglian Regiment.
Apart from some of the perimeter walls, the only building on the site that now survives is The Keep, originally built as the Depot Armoury.
The ‘toy fort’ design was typical of these buildings and was no doubt meant to impress the local population.
The Keep and the surviving boundary walls are Grade II Listed Buildings and are still owned by the Ministry of Defence.
The Suffolk and Cambridgeshire Regiments' Museum occupies part of the ground floor and the first floor of the Keep with the remaining space being the home of Regimental Headquarters, The Royal Anglian Regiment.