Crewe Drill Hall

Crewe Drill Hall

A drill hall built in 1937, architect unknown. The building is constructed in brown brick with concrete dressings and grey slate roofs.

The complex comprises a two-storey administrative and domestic range facing west towards Derrington Avenue, the main drill hall to the east fronting Myrtle Street, a separate garage to the east accessed from Myrtle Street, and a single-storey rifle range abutting the hall to the south. The drill hall is surrounded by terraced housing, most of which predates the building.

The two-storey administration block faces west and presents a symmetrical elevation. It has a hipped roof with sprocketed overhanging eaves and two ridge stacks. The brickwork is laid in English bond with projecting darker horizontal bands across the windows. The elevation steps forward below a soldier-course band beneath the first-floor sills and another topping the low plinth, this band having a moulded upper margin. Two shallow steps are positioned at either end of the elevation. The windows are steel-framed with horizontal glazing bars, grouped between long sills and lintels (except at first-floor level where they sit directly under the eaves). The sills and lintels are concrete with horizontal grooves and rounded ends to the lintels in a streamlined, Moderne manner. The central section has three-light windows to each floor; the ground-floor window is set into a shallow bay rising to the first-floor sill with brick cavetto margins. This bay contains a foundation stone inscribed: 'THIS STONE WAS LAID/ BY HIS WORSHIP/ THE MAYOR OF CREWE/ ALDERMAN F BOTT FP MBE/ ON THE TWENTY THIRD DAY OF JULY IN/ THE YEAR OF GRADE 1937'. To either side are groups of four windows per floor, the ground-floor ones being slightly wider. Each group comprises two wider outer windows and two slimmer inner ones with concrete jambs and brick mullions between; at ground floor the central mullion has an angled central rib.

The right-hand return elevation has similar detailing under a slightly lower roof, stepping forward with slim margins to either side. It has four windows under the eaves (each with a separate sill), a timber door to the accommodation grouped with a window under a projecting grooved lintel, and another window to the right. Below the soldier course the ground floor projects slightly with another window. Above the soldier course is a later parapet in matching brick, screening the flat roof of this rear outshut.

The left-hand return elevation has similar details with a slightly set-forward central portion and one window per floor. This is abutted by the drill hall's principal elevation, which is flanked by matching entrance portals with a small flat-roofed outshut to the left of the left-hand entrance. The projecting entrance portals resemble the lens of a plate camera, stepping forward in progressively smaller planes and culminating in muscular, stepped and concave brick architraves to the panelled original timber double doors. Each is surmounted by a stepped and banded curved brick fin with concrete capping. The left return of the lobby has a window with the same head and sill details as the administration block, as does the frontage of the outshut at the left. The doors are reached by splayed flights of six steps with metal balustrades. The elevation has the same stepped plinth as the administration block and between the lobbies has two projecting three-course bands of darker brick and a soldier course below the eaves. The main roof is of natural slate, hipped into the rear roof of the administration block and gabled at the east end, with continuous rooflights below the ridge on each pitch.

The east elevation of the hall projects in the centre with slim margins and has the same plinth and eaves soldier-course. It has three windows with the same concrete sills and grooved lintels. The south elevation of the hall is partly obscured by the rear outshut of the domestic accommodation and by a rifle range projecting eastwards behind the garage. The range has parapets and a shallow central gable, and buttresses along the south side; its roof is covered with profiled metal sheeting.

The garage is also in English bond with common bricks to the side and rear elevations and gables to the roof covered with corrugated cement sheeting. The front elevation is in the same brick as the hall with a stepped surround to the wide vehicle entrance and folding metal doors.

Interior

The hall is reached from the lobbies by original glazed panel doors with brass handles, recessed in a multi-stepping surround. It retains its original parquet flooring and is open to the steel Belgian-truss roof with curved ties, which is timber-lined. The trusses rest on pilaster buttresses with recessed surrounds to radiator niches. The balcony at the west end and a two-storey block at the east end are later insertions. The kitchen hatch and sanitary fittings are replacements.

The administration block is accessed by central double doors beneath the balcony, set in the same surround as the lobby doors. These give access to a corridor running across the building with original skirtings, architraves, doors and dado rail; the floor is parquet. The mess room retains a brick fireplace in a canted alcove and has a timber bar frontage. Historic office features include cupboard doors and a tiled fireplace. Upstairs the offices and accommodation retain historic features including doors, architraves, cornicing and skirting. Sanitary and kitchen fittings in the flat are replacements.

Subsidiary Features

The forecourt is surrounded by concrete bollards linked by metal chains and retains a timber flagstaff. Railings protect the ginnel between the garage and the hall. The forecourt is paved in concrete flags.