Description

TQ29SE BOWES ROAD
790/22/10052 (South side)
14-AUG-00 Bowes Road Clinic

GV II

Health Clinic. 1938-40 by Middlesex County Council Architect's Department, W T Curtis, County Architect and H W Burchett, Assistant Architect to the Education Committee. Brown brick laid in English bond with attractive diaper pattern, flat felted roofs supported on concrete beams. `L'-shaped plan; single-storied but with stepped profile created by rooms of differing ceiling heights. Corner boiler stack. Entrance to front under projecting porch, reached via short attached flight of steps set at right angles; timber set-back door. All windows are metal, with horizontal pattern of small panes; side-opening casements and pivoting or hinged toplights. The interiors are deliberately simple, with some surviving timber doors with glazed upper panel and exposed roof beams. A small post-war extension is not of special interest.

Curtis and Burchett established a distinctive idiom for the architecture of Middlesex County Council from 1932 onwards, based on the style adopted so successfully by Willem Dudok, architect of Hilversum, the Netherlands. The style combined a partial concrete frame with brick cladding to produce an architecture that was streamlined and modern in style, relatively cheap to construct, yet imbued with civic dignity and a strong presence. The clinic forms a strong group with the slightly earlier adjoining swimming baths and library, and is one of their richest compositions, well massed and with a judicious use of simple ornament. The clinic was originally designed for the medical inspection of school children.

Sources
Minutes of Southgate Urban District Council, May 1937
School Medical Officer's Report, 1938

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27086814

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

• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990: Updated version
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Lancashire: Manchester and the South-East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Cork: City and County (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Ireland)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings