Rugby Radio Station

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16/04/2020

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HILLMORTON Rugby Radio Station

03-FEB-05

II Radio transmission station. 1925. Post Office Engineers. Red brick laid in English bond with a flat roof [formerly hipped with pantiles]. Classical. H-shaped plan; the front range, of three storeys, contains transmission equipment. The rear range, which is connected by a single-storey corridor, is a two-storey generator hall.

Entrance front has to the centre a two-storey entrance lobby in the form of a large, kiosk which is square in plan and projects fully beyond the body of the range. This has a deep, two-storey entrance arch with an ashlar door surround to the ground floor which has a triangular pediment supported on console brackets. Above this is a rectangular, metal-framed fanlight surrounded by brick rustication and above that is a separate semi-circular window, placed immediately beneath the arch. There is a stone entablature to the top of the wall with a blocking course. The reveals of this central motif have circular windows to the lower body and triple windows above.

Projecting to either side are single storey wings, each of five bays with sash windows of sixteen panes. Behind, the main body of the block has cross windows to the ground floor and eight round arched windows to the third floor. Above this was originally a wooden cornice with paired brackets to the deep eaves and a pantile roof, but following a fire in 1943 this was replaced with a double-skin flat metal roof. Each reveal of this front block has three tiers of openings; those to the ground floor have banded brick rustication and a cambered arch, at first floor level is a pair of loading doors with platform. To the third floor are Diocletian windows. The openings at ground and third floor level have been blocked. Rear: the lower body of the ground floor is largely hidden by later additions but the upper walling has eight cross windows. To the third floor are eight round-arched windows as on the entrance front. The power hall which is attached by a corridor is wider than the transmission block and has to its South west front twelve round arched windows.

Interior: the original equipment within the building has almost all been replaced but the plan form of large upper and lower halls to the front range and power hall to the generator block are still in situ.

This building expresses in its rugged classicism something of the national pride in the new technology which the building housed and the awe which contemporary technical literature also reveals in the face of the massive quantities of electricity needed to power the station. The building was widely used by the Post Office after its opening as an image for publicity.

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