Belsize Fire Station

Belsize Fire Station, built 1912–1915, is a fire station designed by Charles Canning Windmill of the Fire Brigade Branch of the London County Council Architects' Department.

The building is constructed in brick with a tile roof and tall brick chimney-stacks. The appliance bay frontage and raised basement are clad in stone. Tile-hung dormer windows, tile lintels, and brick relieving arches appear throughout. Decorative metalwork includes castellated hoppers and cresting along the gutters of the roof terrace and appliance bays.

The plan is L-shaped, with an accommodation range facing Eton Avenue and an appliance room facing Lancaster Grove, connected by a large brick tower at the corner for drills and hose-drying.

The exterior presents a sophisticated interpretation of an Arts and Crafts-style house adapted to fire brigade requirements. The Eton Avenue elevation resembles a terrace of cottages, featuring tall chimneys, casements with leaded lights, canted timber bays set under deep eaves, and a ground-floor bay with moulded brick mullions and transoms. The rear, facing the yard, follows a more typical LCC design with deck-accessed fireman's flats. The Lancaster Grove elevation accommodates three appliance bays in a rustic idiom with a steeply pitched roof that flares at low-hanging eaves and tall hipped dormer windows. The monumental tower, despite its height and breadth, maintains the domestic character through segmental arched and latticed recessed panels in the brickwork that reduce its visual mass.

The interior retains substantial original features. The appliance room preserves its original watch-room and cream glazed brick wall. The stairwell also features cream glazed bricks, with a metal balustrade and sliding-pole chamber and doors surviving intact. The watch tower retains an iron spiral stair and hose-drying chamber. The first-floor single men's dormitory (now the gym) has an open truss roof and a second pole house leading directly to the appliance room. The former single men's mess room (now the kitchen) contains an original fireplace in russet glazed brick with an overmantle inlaid with Delft-style tiles. The ground-floor recreation room preserves original panelling and a fireplace. Numerous original fireplaces and timber doors remain throughout the accommodation sections, along with numbered pegs in the gear room.

The station was opened on 22 May 1915 by Percy C Simmons, Chairman of the Fire Brigade Committee of the LCC, as recorded on the foundation stone. It replaced the earlier station at St John's Wood (built 1870) and joined the stations at Hampstead village (built 1874) and West Hampstead (built 1901) in serving the area.

Belsize Fire Station represents one of the most distinctive designs from the LCC Fire Brigade Branch's most creative period. Between 1896 and the outbreak of the First World War, architects including Owen Fleming and Charles Canning Windmill—both formerly of the LCC Housing Department—brought an avant-garde approach to fire station design, creating buildings that ranged from standardised plans to highly experimental, context-sensitive designs. Early exemplars include Perry Vale, Euston, East Greenwich, and West Hampstead. Belsize is among the last designs produced before 1914 and, through Windmill's authorship, proves characteristic of the earlier stations in its distinctive architecture, attention to detail, and sensitivity to setting. The station occupies a prominent site at the apex of two roads lined with high-quality Edwardian houses, and the design's sensitivity to this context is marked. The generous plot size accommodates the fireman's flats in a separate two-storey range, creating a striking picturesque view from the junction.

The building remains externally unextended and retains its original timber appliance bay doors, plan form, and numerous interior features, making it one of the most intact examples of this series.