Glencorse Barracks

Glencorse Barracks
Penicuik
250px The Old and The New at Glencorse Barracks
Glencorse Barracks Location within Midlothian
Coordinates
Type	Barracks
Site information
Owner	Ministry of Defence
Operator	British Army
Site history
Built	1803
Built for	War Office
In use	1803-Present
Garrison information
Occupants	The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland

Glencorse Barracks are situated in Glencorse just outside the town of Penicuik in Midlothian, Scotland.

History

Glencorse Barracks date from 1803, when they were first used to hold prisoners, then known as Greenlaw Military Prison, during the Napoleonic Wars before being bought outright from the private estate on which they stood (1812). The only surviving building from that time is the former Guardroom, which is now the Clocktower. A memorial gateway to the Royal Scots Regiment marks the entrance to the Barracks, though it is no longer in use. In 1804, Greenlaw House, leased from the Trotters at the Bush, near Roslin, was converted into a depôt for French prisoners of war.

Additional buildings were erected in 1813, at a cost of £100,000, to house 6,000 prisoners and their guards. However, the Napoleonic Wars came to an end a year later and the prisoners were sent home. Most of the prisoners were crews of privateers - nearly 300 men were confined in the mansion house. Ensign Hugh Maxwell was convicted of culpable homicide for the death, in January 1807, of Charles Cottier, a prisoner in Greenlaw House. Maxwell was the commander of a guard of 36 men of the Lanarkshire Militia, who were, at the time, based in Penicuik. He was imprisoned in the Tolbooth at Canongate for 9 months.

A monument which was erected at Valleyfield in memory of those prisoners who died in captivity is now surrounded by houses in this redeveloped area of the river valley.

Nothing remains of Greenlaw House. However, it is thought that the cellars of the Officers' Mess owe their existence to this 17th-century mansion.

Although for a while it was a Military Prison, the barracks were little used between 1815 and 1875, when they became depôt of the army of the south-east of Scotland, being converted at a cost of £30,000.

For some years, the barracks were the depôt of the Royal Scots. The barracks went on to become the regional centre for infantry training as the Lowland Brigade Depôt in 1960. In 1970, following the formation of the Scottish Division, junior soldiers from the Lowland Brigade moved from Glencorse to Gordon Barracks, in Aberdeen. Adult Highland Brigade recruits moved from Gordon Barracks to The Scottish Division Depôt at Glencorse Barracks on the same day.

Royal Scots corporal Andrew Walker killed three Army colleagues in a payroll robbery in the Pentland Hills, south of Edinburgh, in January 1985. He was jailed for life. All three were stationed in Glencorse barracks.

The barracks closed in 2003 for a £60 million revamp that "Today's soldiers will and should enjoy - modern flats, en-suite bedrooms, satellite TV and broadband access - the sort of things that young men and women in civilian society take for granted" - John Reid, defence Secretary, April 2006.

As part of the Future Force 2020 budgetary announcement in July 2011, RAF Kirknewton was to have been developed into a major Army base to host a Multi-Role Brigade with Glencorse Barracks being expanded. However plans to develop Kirknewton as an Army barracks were scrapped in March 2013.

Glencorse is one of the three barracks comprising the City of Edinburgh Garrison. It has been the home for The Royal Highland Fusiliers, 2nd Battalion, The Royal Regiment of Scotland since 2006.