Qualla: RM Stonehouse https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: RM Stonehouse https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse RM Stonehouse: Introduction https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. Three identical sets of barracks were built in the 1780s for the new Royal Marine divisions: one at Chatham, one at Portsmouth, one at Plymouth. Today only the Plymouth set still stands. Walk through the granite arch on Durnford Street in Stonehouse and you step into a rectangular parade ground bounded by long Georgian ranges of golden limestone, the same paving and porches that watched Marines drill their way toward the Napoleonic Wars. The commandos who train here call it the spiritual home of the Corps - and for the last forty-five years, every Royal Marine officer's career has touched this courtyard.

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Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full RM Stonehouse: The Birth of the Three Divisions https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit Eirian Evans, CC BY-SA 2.0. Marines have been quartered somewhere in Plymouth ever since the Corps was founded in 1664, but for more than a century they lodged in whatever scraps of accommodation the town could spare. That changed in 1775, when His Majesty's Marine Forces were reorganised into three divisio...

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Image: Eirian Evans | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-the-birth-of-the-three-divisions.mp3 0:06 2 full RM Stonehouse: A Georgian Courtyard, Slowly Filling In https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit Springnuts, Public domain. The original 1780s plan was strict and symmetrical. A long barrack range on the east side housed the private Marines. Two shorter blocks to north and south held the officers - the south block including grander houses at each end for the commandant and his deputy. The west side wa...

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Image: Springnuts | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-a-georgian-courtyard-slowly-filling-in.mp3 0:06 3 full RM Stonehouse: Colonel Greene's Crimean Expansion https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit JThomas, CC BY-SA 2.0. The Crimean War of the 1850s triggered the biggest reshaping of the site. Colonel Godfrey Greene, an Army engineer, oversaw the work. Around 1860 the east barracks was lengthened northward to cram in more men, and the south block stretched westward to make room for more officers....

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Image: JThomas | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-colonel-greenes-crimean-expansion.mp3 0:06 4 full RM Stonehouse: From Divisional Home to Commando Headquarters https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit Ian S, CC BY-SA 2.0. The whole divisional system that had given the barracks its identity was swept away during the Second World War. Plymouth, Portsmouth, and Chatham were no longer the home depots of separate Royal Marine divisions; the Corps was being reorganised around the new commando units that...

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Image: Ian S | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-from-divisional-home-to-commando-headquarters.mp3 0:06 5 full RM Stonehouse: Saved, Again https://qualla.com/rm-stonehouse/ Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. For a decade now, Stonehouse has been living on borrowed time. In September 2016 the Ministry of Defence announced the site would be sold off and a replacement Marine superbase built elsewhere in Plymouth. A Better Defence Estate put the disposal date at 2023. Then it slipped to ...

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/b/v/n/rm-stonehouse-wp/gbvn-rm-stonehouse-saved-again.mp3 0:06 6 full