Chelsea Barracks

Chelsea Barracks
London
Chelsea Barracks circa 1870
Chelsea Barracks Location within London
Coordinates	51°29′20″N 00°09′11″W / 51.48889°N 0.15306°W / 51.48889; -0.15306Coordinates: 51°29′20″N 00°09′11″W / 51.48889°N 0.15306°W / 51.48889; -0.15306
Type	Residential (Former Army Barracks)
Site information
Owner	Qatari Diar
Site history
Built	1860-1862
Built for	War Office
In use	1862-2008

Chelsea Barracks was a British Army barracks located in the City of Westminster, London, adjacent to Chelsea and Belgravia, on Chelsea Bridge Road. Today, Chelsea barracks is owned by Project Blue Ltd and is the flagship London development of Qatari Diar, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA).

The original barracks were designed by George Morgan to house two battalions of infantry and were completed in 1862. These barracks were a long and monotonous brick structure broken by towers in the centre. The original arrangement included a chapel which survives, the interior of which includes pictures of King David, the Prophet Joshua, Saint John and Saint James as well as some panels listing the names of soldiers who have been killed in action. It is now a Grade II listed building.

The original buildings, excluding the chapel, were demolished and, in June 1960, construction started on two 13-storey concrete tower blocks which were designed by Tripe and Wakeham and completed in 1962. The tower blocks were used to accommodate four companies from the Guards Regiments. A nail-bomb attack on the barracks by the Provisional Irish Republican Army in September 1981 killed two civilians.

On 6 September 2005 Secretary of State for Defence, John Reid, announced that Chelsea Barracks would be sold. He described it as needing extensive renovations. The site was vacated in 2008 with the troops transferred to the Royal Artillery Barracks at Woolwich. The site was part of the Ministry of Defence's Project MoDEL that saw it and five other sites across London sold off, mainly for housing.