Former bus garage, 270-276 Huntingdon Street

An inter-war bus garage, completed in 1939 in a Moderne style for the Barton Transport bus company, to the designs of HH Dawson.

PLAN The building is roughly square on plan, with the principal entrance elevation facing onto Huntingdon Street.

MATERIALS The building is built of brick, with decorative faience cladding to the north-east elevation. The roof is formed of three parallel shallow double pitches supported by a complex mild steel trussed roof structure with a corrugated sheet roof covering.

EXTERIOR The symmetrical entrance (north-east) elevation is composed of three sections, with two-storey advanced sections with curved ends flanking a recessed entrance section housing a wide entrance opening, formerly served by doors now replaced by a roller shutter. The walling to the flanking two-bay sections curves inwards to meet the recessed entrance area, and also curves around onto the side elevations for a short distance. Above the central entrance, the walling extends upwards above the roof line of the flanking sections to form a tall parapet wall, the curved ends of which extend back into the main roof area of the building. Historic photographs show this area to have incorporated a window opening above a wide horizontally-reeded band extending the full width of the entrance section to link with the upper storey of the flanking sections of the building. This has been retained but the reeded decoration appears to be covered.

The lower floor areas of the flanking sections were designed to incorporate retail units, with office accommodation above. The lower levels are now covered by sheeting, but the upper levels are clad in white faience, and each section incorporates two wide window openings with three-light transomed metal window frames. At the junction of the curved walling and the entrance section are wide vertically-reeded faience panels extending from floor level to half the height of the ground floor, above which sheeting conceals the upper section. At either end of the frontage, curved faience-clad walling returns onto the side elevations, ending at wide vertically-reeded terminal pilaster-like panels. The side elevations are built of brick and are more functionally detailed, each with evenly-spaced window openings with plain brick heads, shallow faience projecting cills, and metal window frames.

INTERIOR The interior of the building, with the exception of the frontage units is a single open space. The south-east side wall supports a cantilevered raised walkway extending almost the full length width of the building. The roof structure is a complex, lightweight steel structure, designed to resist both the compression and tension stresses present in the long, unsupported spans, and designed to achieve the open-plan interior required. The curved ends of the front walling either side of the entrance doorway reflect the curvature of the building's exterior.