Chatterley Whitfield: area shaft building (23)

The building is a former colliery equipment store (number 23) and electricity sub-station, dating from around 1948, with minor alterations made in the late 20th century.

It is constructed from an exposed steel frame, with red brick infill panels and an asbestos sheet roof covered with continuous patent glazed roof lights. The building has a rectangular plan consisting of two parallel ranges of two storeys each, with pitched roofs, aligned roughly west to east. Single-storey, mono-pitched lean-tos are attached to the south-east and north-west corners; the south-east lean-to houses the electricity sub-station and includes a lift shaft with a tower that rises above the building.

The principal, east elevation features wagon doors in each bay, with a steel roller shutter on the right-hand side. These doors are flanked by metal-framed windows, the outer ones taller and containing a pedestrian entrance below, with four additional windows above the wagon doors. The upper floor of each range has three narrower windows, with continuous steel bands to the heads and cills. A blocked wagon door is visible on the lean-to attached to the west end wall. The north and south side elevations are each characterised by twenty window bays, featuring regularly spaced, tall multi-pane metal windows on the ground floor, complemented by shallower windows of the same type on the upper floor, with window heads at eaves level. The south elevation has a central wagon door with a smaller window above. The east gable end mirrors the arrangement of tall ground-floor windows and narrower upper windows seen elsewhere. The left-hand range features a large central opening with a roller shutter providing rail access into the building, with the lower portions of the ground-floor windows blocked.

Inside, the building has a tall ground floor which functions as an open workshop/storage area, comprising two main bays. Originally, these bays had narrow rail tracks and overhead travelling cranes for the mechanised handling of equipment; the southern bay retains two cranes, while the other bay has only a gantry. The upper floor's steel beams and concrete slab are supported by regularly spaced steel uprights, with the spaces between the central steels largely infilled with blockwork to divide the ground floor into two areas. An internal brick office area with metal-framed windows is located at the east end. The north range has open access to the north-west lean-to, while the south range includes a steel staircase and a lift shaft to the upper floor, which is a large, open space. The roof consists of pitched steel trusses with angled struts and tie beams, supported on a central row of steel uprights. The southern lean-to retains some of the electric switchgear for the colliery’s incoming electricity supply.