Acocks Green Police Station and former courthouse

A police station with an incorporated courthouse for Worcestershire Police, built in 1909 to designs by Alfred Vernon Rowe (1881-1940), County Architect.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed of red brick laid in English bond with terracotta detailing. The chimneys are of brick and terracotta, and the roofs are covered in plain clay tiles.

Layout

The building forms a rough T-plan with some small additions. The main range runs north-south along Yardley Road. The long rear wing was formerly the courthouse and cells. The branch of the main range to the centre and south was occupied by the police station, and the northern end contained three police houses, all now incorporated into the police station.

Exterior

The two-storey building is designed in a Queen Anne domestic revival style with extensive terracotta detailing throughout the principal elevations, including moulded window and door surrounds, keystones, pediments, aprons, pilasters, dentils and moulded cartouches. All windows have been replaced in uPVC, with designs attempting to echo the original multi-paned sashes.

The long main range facing Yardley Road is broadly symmetrical, with an additional corner turret to the right. The five-bay entrance features a central, three-windowed pedimented bay with paired Ionic pilasters and a large segmental-arched window opening. The pediment contains a cartouche bearing the coat of arms for Worcestershire. The flanking projecting entrance bays—one giving access to the police station, the other to the former courthouse—have rusticated brickwork to the ground floor, semi-circular arched doorways with double panelled doors, a moulded cill band, and broken semi-circular pediments with finials and cartouches displaying "AD" and "1909". To either side are three bays. The central bay is a full-height canted bay with a parapet projecting above the eaves, all clad in terracotta with depressed panels between floors. The bays to either side have central triangular pediments breaking above the dentilled eaves and forming part of the window surrounds, with segmental-arched pediments to the corresponding ground-floor windows. The left-hand end has no doorways. The right-hand end has a recessed entrance porch to paired doorways giving access to two of the former police houses.

The right-hand end returns around the corner into Alexander Road. The corner is marked by an octagonal corner turret of three storeys, with the upper storey breaking above the eaves. Each face has keyed oculi, and there is a dome above. The three-bay right return has an entrance to the third former police house with an elaborately-moulded overdoor. The left return continues the dentil eaves over three first-floor windows and a single more elaborate ground-floor window. Terracotta cill bands extend across the main elevation and both returns. The roofs are hipped with ridge finials.

The rear of the building is much plainer, built in less even red-buff brick. There are simply-moulded eaves details, and the windows mainly have rubbed-brick voussoirs, with some stone lintels with chamfers to the openings. The rear of the paired police houses have projecting wings, each with a ground-floor canted bay window under stone lintels and paired rectangular windows above. The north side has its original lean-to extension housing three openings; the other side has a second-storey addition. The rear of the southern range has a projecting two-storey wing including a subsidiary doorway, which continues parallel to the main range as a single storey with a flat roof.

The two-storey courthouse wing projects to the rear, forming a T-plan with the main range. The cells occupied the ground floor, and the courtroom and associated functions were above. The final two bays are set slightly lower with a half-hipped roof. The range terminates on the south side with a projecting flat-roofed bay with an external doorway leading to a stair rising directly to the suite of courtrooms. The segmental-arched doorway with a rubbed-brick arch has a brick and terracotta pedimented surround with brick pilasters and terracotta Ionic capitals with egg and dart mouldings. The first floor has high paired windows to the former courtroom and smaller windows to the ancillary rooms. The ground floor has smaller segmental-arched openings to the cells, housing glass-brick windows in thick-barred matrices. A lean-to carport of corrugated metal on metal posts stands against the southern elevation. The northern elevation is similar but terminates with a large stack rising from a lean-to boiler house.

Interior

Former Police Station

The former police station is laid out on a corridor plan with rooms to front and rear off a central passageway. The rooms are plain with skirtings as the only historic joinery; all have inserted suspended ceilings. Behind the entrance porch is the stair hall. The stair is a closed-string open-well flight with a turned newel, ball finial and turned balusters; the area beneath the stair is panelled. The reception lobby to which the porch leads has a late-20th-century counter and associated fittings. The first floor has a similar layout with some later subdivisions.

Former Courthouse

The second ground-floor entrance in the main range, for the courthouse, gives access into a porch and self-contained stair hall. The open-string dog-leg stair has a slender turned newel post with two spiral iron balusters to each tread. The toadsback handrail is ramped as the stair turns. The first-floor landing has been modified. The first-floor rooms above the entrance bay and the courthouse wing extending to the rear retain more elaborate joinery. A wide opening off the landing has a moulded eared doorcase with panelling and a ramped cornice above. Ancillary rooms have bolection-moulded architraves. The former courtroom has been subdivided with lightweight partitions. At the western end of the former courtroom, two steps rise into the rear rooms via an eared pedimented doorcase with panelling, into a retiring room formerly with a corner fireplace (since removed). Adjoining this is a small lobby with access into a former lavatory with walls tiled to picture rail height. The lobby gives access to a stone stair which turns through 90 degrees and rises from the external entrance in the southern elevation, giving direct access from the street to the retiring room. The staircase has spiral iron balusters and a wreathed curtail. The lobby in which it emerges has fitted cupboards. The stair from the cells to the courtroom has been removed but may have been sited along the northern side of the range. The ground floor is now accessed from the ground floor of the police station range. The cells retain their layout, though some have been adopted for other uses.

Former Police Houses

The former police houses largely retain their historic plan form. The paired houses entered from Yardley Road form a mirror pair with two rooms to the front range, each formerly with a corner fireplace (since removed), a stair hall to the rear, and a former larder and good room in the rear wing. One of the pair has had its stair removed, though the location is legible, and a single doorway has been opened up between the hallways of the two houses on the ground floor. The other house retains its stair, and its larder is still fitted out with shelving on moulded brackets and a low slate shelf for cold goods. The third house is accessed from Alexander Road. The interior was not accessible at the time of inspection, but plans show that the layout remains, with a central entrance hall giving access to each of four rooms on the ground floor. To the first floor, the paired houses have been opened up in the rear wing, removing the wall between the two rear bedrooms. The first floor of the third house appears largely unaltered.

Subsidiary Features

The plot fronting Yardley Road is bounded by low brick walls with triangular-section terracotta coping. The walls return to bound paths to the doorways in the main elevation, ramping up alongside the steps to the entrances. These have been modified by the addition of a gently-sloping ramp to the police station entrance in the later 20th century. The walls curve around the corner with Alexander Road to provide a similar entrance to the house on the return.