Canteen At Branston Depot

SK 22 SW 944/6/10011 05-FEB-01

BRANSTON ROAD Branston (North side) Canteen at Branston Depot

GV II

Canteen, surgery and social centre. 1918. Brick with gabled slate roofs. Planned as a double-gabled E-W range with a double-gabled block projecting from centre of front (S) elevation; surgery and service blocks frame 2 service yards to rear. One storey. All gable ends are stone-coped with horizontal mid band, all windows are metal multi-paned casements and all doors to front and flank elevations are panelled and half-glazed. S elevation faces onto former bowling green, and has projecting flat-roofed 6-bay loggias to each side: these have brick piers rising to dentilled course below parapet, fronting 2 doors and 3 windows to each side. Projecting central block has 3-bay S elevation with paired windows set in recessed bays articulated by pilasters and stepped eaves course. Each double-gabled side elevation has full-width recessed ground-floor bay with dentilled cornice over continuous lintel and central doors with overlight and flanking windows. Similar end gables to E and W gables of main range. Interior retains original joinery including panelled doors. HISTORY: This building, prominently sited close to the Office Block (qv) of the former National Machine Gun Factory, was built as a canteen, surgery and social centre for male and female munitions workers. Facing onto a former bowling green, it relates to an important phase in the development of British factory architecture, when imported American ideas on sustaining the health and fitness of the workforce had their first impact on factory planning. 169,700 of the 305,900 employees on the 215 National Factory sites in November 1918 were women, a factor which influenced the layout (included segregated areas for men and women) of these new types of factory buildings. This building is externally unaltered, and stands in relationship to the most architecturally elaborate complex built under the National Factories scheme.

Listing NGR: SK2337621237