West Midlands Fire Service Headquarters

This fire service headquarters was completed in 1935 to designs by Herbert Humphries and Herbert J. Manzoni. Built of red Flemish bond brick with Portland stone and concrete dressings and a pantile roof, the building stands three storeys high with attics and basement. It occupies a triangular site at Lancaster Circus in central Birmingham, with ranges arranged around a central drill yard and fronting three streets: Corporation Street, Aston Street and New Street.

The headquarters was designed to house an enclosed community for fire-fighters, their families and senior officers. It included housing, a schoolroom and rooftop playground, and recreation rooms, alongside garaging for fire engines, workshops and stores for their repair. The architectural style is Neo-Georgian on the exterior elevations, whilst the courtyard fronts and the tall hose tower at the eastern corner of the yard adopt a functional or 'Moderne' aesthetic.

History

The building was designed as the New Central Fire Station for the City of Birmingham by Herbert Humphries (later Sir Herbert Humphries) and completed by Herbert Manzoni after Humphries' retirement in 1935. Construction required demolition of existing buildings including a tavern, the City Weights and Measures Department and a row of houses to clear a site of approximately 8,000 square yards. The site was cleared by October 1930, but the foundation stone was not laid until March 1934. The building was finished by December 1935 at a cost of £157,000 and officially opened by the Duke of Kent.

Contemporary accounts reflect the high degree of civic pride which the building provoked, with glowing articles describing its advanced technology. This included lights to indicate which machines were to respond to a fire, loud speakers to identify fire locations, and electronically controlled engine starting and door opening. It also featured the latest 'turntable escape', reputedly the first of its kind in the country. The overall plan gives rich insight into the functioning and aspirations of the fire service at that time, prior to its nationalisation in 1941.

Exterior

The building takes advantage of rising ground, with the Corporation Street façade and the corner tower above the entrance arch at the junction of Corporation Street and Aston Street designed to be read from a distance as a statement of civic pride. The tower and archway adopt an English Baroque idiom owing something to Nicholas Hawksmoor's church designs.

The clock tower and principal gateway at the corner of Corporation Street and Aston Street is of Portland stone with a large central arch of two-storey height flanked by square-headed pedestrian gates, each opening having decorative bronze gates. The stone has banded rustication with prominent voussoirs to the arch. The keystone bears an escutcheon with the letters BFB in a cipher. Above this is plain ashlar with bronze lettering reading 'WEST MIDLANDS/ FIRE SERVICE/ HEADQUARTERS'. A clock face is set above, and at the top is a belvedere with aedicular surrounds to the principal openings facing southwest and northeast. These have Corinthian columns and open pediments. The tower is topped by a stepped parapet with concave panels. Beneath the archway the tunnel vault is coffered. At either side are single bays with sash windows of 4x5 panes, a type which recurs across the building.

The 35-bay Corporation Street front and the 31-bay Aston Street front both have symmetrical centres flanked by projecting Portland stone pavilions. The New Street front has 27 bays with a symmetrical centre, although more subdued in treatment.

The Corporation Street façade has 8 plain bays at left and 10 to the right of the central composition, which is marked by three-bay pavilions of Portland stone that project slightly. These are similar and each has banded rustication to the ground floor and a central doorway with a Diocletian window as fanlight. At first floor level the central window has a deep aedicular surround supported on brackets with free-standing Tuscan columns. To either side of this central window are panels of banded rustication and the lateral windows have Gibbs surrounds. The central second floor window is sunk and there is a pedimented gabled dormer to the roof. Between these pavilions are set the 11 pairs of panelled, half-glazed double doors to the machine room. These have a colonnade surround of Portland stone which projects slightly and has a bolection moulding to the outer edge. The bays are divided by pilasters and there is a parapet with escutcheon and coat of arms to the centre. Recessed above this are 13 bays of first and second floor fenestration with keystones to the sashes and cambered heads to the second floor windows. To the ridge is a timber belvedere with copper-clad roof and plinth which has Corinthian demi-columns, a squared dome and a ball-and-spike finial.

The Aston Street façade is broadly similar in treatment but differs in the handling of certain elements. The central portion is also terminated by three-bay Portland stone pavilions. Here these have banded rustication to either side of the central first and second floor windows and pedimented dormer windows to the attic. The 15 bays in between are divided into modules of three bays, the central bay in each module having banded brick piers to either side of a Gibbs surround to the first floor window. At ground floor level are 14 shopfronts, grouped as pairs and divided by banded stone piers, the majority of which appear to retain their original windows, stallrisers, transom lights and fascias.

The New Street façade is similarly divided into three parts but more plainly treated with tripartite windows illuminating the workshops at ground floor level and grilles at attic level for the rooftop playground.

The drill yard is set with its original granite setts. The New Street range has the double doors of the workshops at ground floor level and the Aston Street range has the small back yard walls of the shops. Both ranges have walk-up flats to the first and second floors with concrete balconies and brick stair towers. The range facing Corporation Street has projecting three-bay wings at either side of the central 13 bays. To the ground and first floor and placed in front of the 6 left-hand bays is the added Fire Control Room.

The drill tower at the eastern corner of the yard is approximately 90 feet high. It has the most pronounced use of the 1930s Moderne aesthetic on the site with horizontal bands and cogged detailing to the top stage. It was originally built to dry out the canvas hoses and has paired openings to the west front. Two single-storey generator sheds were built against the south and east sides in the later 20th century.

The fronts facing the courtyard have two tiers of balconies giving onto flats on the upper floors of the New Street and Aston Street ranges. The ground floors house workshops (New Street) and shops (Aston Street). The Corporation Street range has a machine room at ground floor level with space for 11 engines, above which were the single men's rooms and administrative rooms including the schoolroom, committee rooms and the Second Officer's House. On the second floor were the large barrel-vaulted Recreation Room and the Gymnasium. A projecting addition was added to the courtyard side of the Corporation Street block in the mid-20th century to house a new Fire Control room at first floor level with plant rooms beneath.

Interior

The entrance hall has a patterned terrazzo floor and the treatment is carried up the walls and is seen on the treads and risers of the staircase. There is a bronze statue of a fireman gifted by the sculptor Wheatley. The committee room has raised and fielded oak panelling to three-quarter height and a bolection moulded fire surround. The large Recreation Room has had a stage inserted, but otherwise conforms to its original appearance with a segmental tunnel-vaulted ceiling which has oval and round occuli to the centre.

The interior of the Machine Room is also largely original, with tiled patterns to the floor, decorative tiles to the walls and panelled ceilings and the original pairs of double, semi-glazed doors facing Corporation Street.

The original firemen's housing is now used as office space. Despite this the degree of alteration is minimal and the plans of the one and two-bedroom flats can still be easily read.

This building is a carefully designed example of the Neo-Georgian style as it was adapted to inter-war institutional buildings. It also gives a graphic impression of the life of the community who lived and worked on the site. In its organisation it anticipates the report of the Riverdale Committee in 1936 and the Fire Brigades Act of 1938 which foresaw the needs of wartime.

This is a notable municipal complex and one of the finest fire station ensembles of the mid-20th century. The outward elevations possess considerable architectural dignity, whilst the internal configuration reflects the careful design of the complex, which housed a community and included housing, recreation, workshops and offices.