edge of the Common; it later expanded to become the Royal Horse Infirmary. The Royal Horse Infirmary became the headquarters of the Army Veterinary Department from its inception in 1859, and the Principal Veterinary Surgeon (PVS) was quartered here (until moving to the War Office in 1876). Immediately to the north of the Royal Horse Infirmary, a 'permanent Camp of Huts' was erected in the 1850s, which remained occupied by Artillery and other troops through the second half of the century; further to the south were several sets of stables. In 1896 Shrapnel Barracks was built alongside, which provided accommodation for two field-batteries of Artillery. During the First World War the barracks served as No 1 (Eastern) Cavalry Depot, before reverting after the war once more to house a field brigade of Artillery. During and after the Second World War it continued to house Artillery units, and later provided accommodation for the Women's Royal Army Corps; Shrapnel Barracks was demolished in the late 1960s (Queen Elizabeth Hospital now stands on the site). Immediately to the north of the barracks a Remount Depot was built in 1887, the year the Army Remount Service was established (previously, individual cavalry regiments had been responsible for purchasing and training their own horses). Earlier, a smaller 'Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers Remount Establishment' had been set up nearby to cover the needs of those units; the new depot continued to focus on providing horses for the Artillery and Engineers, while also providing remounts for the Army Service Corps, which had its main Horse Transport Depot (successor to the Military Train) at Woolwich, in Connaught Barracks on the other side of the common. After serious failings in the Second Boer War, the army sought to improve (among other things) its veterinary services. In 1903 a committee of inquiry recommended the establishment of two new Station Veterinary Hospitals (one at Woolwich, the other at Aldershot), with Woolwich designated as the Corps depot of a new Army Veterinary Corps. The new veterinary hospital was set up in what had been the Remount Depot; the Remount Depot meanwhile moved into the old Horse Infirmary. Woolwich was also the main designated location for army veterinary stores, to which end a large mobilization and reserve store was constructed (just south of the Rotunda) in 1907. The RAVC depot remained at Woolwich until 1939. Housing and hospitals In the 1730s only twenty