Burnley Barracks

Burnley Barracks
Burnley, Lancashire
This section of Barracks Road (which spans the railway) is at what used to be the South West corner of the barracks site
Burnley Barracks Location within Lancashire
Coordinates	53°47′21″N 2°15′40″W / 53.7892°N 2.2610°W / 53.7892; -2.2610Coordinates: 53°47′21″N 2°15′40″W / 53.7892°N 2.2610°W / 53.7892; -2.2610
Type	Barracks
Site information
Owner	War Office
Operator	British Army
Site history
Built	1819
In use	1819-1898

Burnley Barracks was a military installation at Burnley in Lancashire, England. Built for cavalry, but later used for infantry and storage, military activities at the barracks declined in the late 19th century.

The barracks were built during an economic depression in 1819 at a cost of £5,500, nearly half funded by local landowners and businessmen hoping it would prevent rioting. It was from these barracks that artillery was despatched to Rossendale during the Power-loom riots of 1826. In November 1841, the barracks was the site of double-murder suicide. Private Robert Morris, a mess waiter and servant to Lt. O'Grady, had formed an intimacy with Isabella Hadden, the daughter of the mess-master. On a Sunday evening, Morris fatally stabbed Hadden and O'Grady in the officer's bedroom using a carving knife, before also killing himself.

The construction of the railway in the second half of the 1840s led to rapid development around the site and the local station, originally only a temporary terminus, was re-opened as Burnley Barracks railway station in 1851. Up to 1861, the Barracks had been used exclusively by the cavalry, usually two troops on six-month detachments. However it was then without a garrison for four years and afterwards it was only occupied for progressively shorter periods with infantry regiments sometimes based here. Among the various regiments of lancers and hussars stationed at the barracks are the Scots Greys, 5th Dragoon Guards and the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, and infantry such as the 33rd Regiment of Foot, Connaught Rangers and Black Watch. For a time during the Crimean War, an Italian regiment from Piedmont was quartered here.