Description

TQ 3178 RENFREW ROAD
(East side)
963/5/10092
Former Fire Station

GV II

Former fire station. 1868 for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, architect Edward Cresy, and 1896 for the London County Council, architect Robert Pearsall and his assistants. Stock brick and red brick, with red brick and stone banding and red brick dressings; the 1896 section with elaborate stone decorations. Slate roofs. This is a complex of three main sections. The centrepiece of 1896 contained the engine room, with watch room to left, recreation room to right and rear stables, with accommodation for the Superintendent and Foreman above, facing Renfrew Road, and rear first-floor dormitory for single firemen, with sets of three rooms (living kitchen, scullery and bedroom) for married firemen. The block to left, of 1868, has similar accommodation for married firemen throughout, with coach house containing similar suites for married coachmen attached to rear. To the right the former fire station was adapted as storage for long ladders and vans, with a first-floor wash house and drying room.

This tripartite composition is well expressed externally. Centrepiece is characterful and strong, in the neo-Jacobean style that makes fire stations of this period so distinctive in London. Four storeys and high attic. The central engine house denoted by two round-arched openings, sympathetically blocked with casement windows and with small door to left. Banding links these to small round-headed windows with voussoirs to right; sashes above with six small lights in upper sash, a single glazing bar to lower sash, all with aprons below. The first floor has a heavy band, the second storey has keystones and the third storey elaborate round-arched tops, from which the centrepiece rises between volutes, with Diocletian window and pedimented gable. Tall stacks. The hose hoist and watchtower behind repeats the spirit of this banded decoration, with volutes as it steps from square to octagonal form, and a round moulding as it steps again from octagonal to round at the top. To left, the accommodation block has its ground-floor windows set in arcaded surrounds with keystones and gauged brickwork, with round-arched sashes set in slightly pointed brick surrounds on first floor, while the sashes to the second floor have small panes in the top sash under gauged brick heads. Moulded brick cornice, bands of red brickwork to upper floors, and stone bands to first and ground floors. One round window to right of this block. The side and rear elevations simpler, but with similar fenestration. To the right, the long ladder and van store has coach entrance, now blocked with windows and double door, with blocked windows in gable above, and sash windows in side elevation to yard.

Interiors not inspected, but noted to retain original fireplaces and doors. Ladder access to tower/ hose hoist.

This is a rare example of a fire station of 1868 in London, given added interest by its recasting with a fine Jacobean-style centrepiece and tower. It is a distinctive, strong example of a London fire station. It also forms a strong group with the adjoining former court house.

Sources
London Metropolitan Archives, LCC/MISC.P/74/1-7
The Builder, 22 November 1890, p.406
Andrew Saint, The Architecture of the London Fire Brigade, RIBA exhibition 1981.

Listing NGR: TQ3164978621

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Old Fire Station at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q27086778

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Specifications for Building Conservation: Volume 1: External Structure: Practical Examples v. 2
• 
  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Devon (Pevsner Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)