Old Fire Station

The Old Fire Station, located at 15 George Street in Lancaster, is a fire station that has been converted into offices. It was built in 1908 by architect Edward Mountford for Lord Ashton as part of the Town Hall scheme on Dalton Square. The building is designed in the Baroque Revival style and constructed from sandstone ashlar with a slate roof featuring coped gables.

The structure has a rectangular plan that is five bays wide and three bays deep, with one storey plus an attic. A tower rises behind the fourth bay. Shallow pilasters at the corners support a cornice with a blocking course that extends into the gables on the sides. The first three bays, which originally served as doorways for fire engines, are now blocked and partly glazed, featuring a flat arch with a triple keystone and a cornice. Above the third bay, the blocking course is pierced by a many-paned lunette with a triple keystone beneath a coped gable.

The right side of the facade includes a round-headed doorway flanked by slightly taller windows, all with triple keystones. There is a central doorway on this side (now blocked) with a Gibbs surround, flanked by windows with triple keystones and topped by a round-headed mezzanine window (also largely blocked). All original windows are twelve-pane sashes. On the left side, there is a stone oriel with canted sides on the first floor.

The tower features a many-paned lunette on each face, each with a triple keystone under a cornice and blocking course. It is topped with a copper-covered dome and an ornate wrought-iron weathercock (now painted) with an urn-shaped body.