Cavalry Barracks, Hounslow

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cavalry Barracks is a British Army installation located north of Hounslow Heath in Hounslow, west London. It was one of 40 such barracks built around London to guard against possible invasion by France in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

The last soldier to be flogged to death in the British Army (Yorkshireman Private Frederick John White) died at Hounslow Barracks in July 1846 (he was buried in nearby St Leonard's churchyard Heston).

The famous Crimean War nursing icon Florence Nightingale undertook some of her early training here, and within the barracks are some of the original army accommodation of the period.

Until the 1970s, Cavalry Barracks was also the home of the (Army's) West London Communication Centre and the Hounslow Regimental Pay Office manned by members of the Royal Army Pay Corps, since amalgamated into the Adjutant General's Corps.

Opposite the barracks and until demolished, sold off and now the site of a business park, was the site of Beavers Lane Camp, the home until 1983 of 10 Signals Regiment, one of the British Army's communications Regiments.

The London Underground was initially extended out to Hounslow West tube station in order to service these barracks, the station originally being called Hounslow Barracks.

It is the location for the line infantry battalion that is posted for public duties in London, currently (as of July 2005) the 1st Battalion, Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment (29th/45th Foot). The next battalion to occupy the barracks will be the Second Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers who will take over Public Duties in the spring of 2008.