This imposing red brick building was erected from 1908-11 to house the increasing number of cadets requiring training. It was designed by H B Measures, Director of Barrack Construction, built by T Rowbotham of Birmingham. The site chosen had been used by cadets to practise entrenchment and the labourers had to remove several miles of buried barbed wire. Three million bricks were used and they had to be brought up on a specially constructed railway line from Blackwater Station. (The engine shed now forms part of the Central Library.) It is rumoured that at the time New College was built it boasted the longest corridor in Europe and even today it remains the longest military building in Britain. The guns guarding the Officers' Mess (the central block of the building) were captured at the Battle of Serangapatam on 6th May 1799
