The original Fletcher Street drill hall was designed as the headquarters of the 27th Lancashire Rifle Volunteer Corps and established by conversion of an old workhouse in the early 1860s.[1] This unit evolved into the 2nd Volunteer Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in 1883 and the 5th Battalion, The Loyal North Lancashire Regiment in 1908.[2] The battalion was mobilised at the drill hall in August 1914 before being deployed to the Western Front[3][4] and was still based there at the start of the Second World War.[5]
After the Second World War the drill hall was substantial rebuilt[1] and renamed Derby Barracks after Edward Stanley, 17th Earl of Derby, who had been honorary colonel of the battalion.[6] Following the cut-backs in 1967, the presence at the barracks was reduced to a single detachment of C Company, 4th (Volunteer) Battalion, The Queen's Lancashire Regiment in 1975[7] but expanded again to company strength when C Company established its main base there in 1986.[7] The barracks were still used as a Territorial Army Centre in the late 1990s[8] but were decommissioned and converted for charitable use in 2006.[9]
