Leigh Fire Station

Leigh Fire Station, built in 1907 by Hunter, the Borough Engineer, is a Grade II listed building that combines a fire station with a house. The structure is made of pressed red brick with terracotta dressings and features a Welsh slate roof. It consists of a 2-storey, 2-bay house on the left side, which is adjacent to a taller 2-storey, 5-bay engine house that has a 4-storey tower at the rear, all designed in the Queen Anne Revival style.

The house has a central 6-panel door with an overlight, sheltered by a tiled canopy supported by brackets. This canopy extends to the right, covering a rectangular 2-light bay window with ovolo moulded surrounds and keystones. The first bay features a 2-storey bay window in the same style, topped by a dormer with a hipped roof and a finial. The first-floor window on the right is flush but has a matching dormer roof, and there is a terracotta plaque above the door.

The engine house has folding, part-glazed doors set beneath segmental arches on square concrete piers. The arches are adorned with raised, facetted voussoirs and a linked hoodmould. To the far left, there is a narrow doorway with a decorative arch and cornice. The first floor features moulded sills, ovolo-moulded surrounds, and raised keystones on 5-light windows. The windows in bays 2 and 4 have stepped round-headed lights that rise above the eaves, beneath shaped gables supported by corbels and capped with pediments. A semi-octagonal oriel window on the far left rises as an embattled turret. The roof is half-hipped with louvered gablets and finials.

At the rear, the tower includes side windows and a modillioned cornice beneath a parapet with rounded corner turrets. An attached iron framework supports four platforms linked by ladders. This fire station is a well-preserved and stylish example of its type.