Stables and Carriageway Entrance Building at the Former LGOC Pitfield Street Depot

Stables and Carriageway Entrance Building at the Former LGOC Pitfield Street Depot, 1895. The adjacent east range, originally a covered yard for the LGOC, is excluded from the listing.

MATERIALS: constructed from buff stock brick with a tiled roof, with sections of modern cladding and glazing.

PLAN: the building has a rectangular footprint between the terraces of houses on Buttesland Street and Haberdasher Street and is accessed via a carriageway arch at 66A Buttesland Street. The adjacent eastern range, once the associated covered yard, is excluded from the listing.

EXTERIOR: the position of the building between the backs of the two terraces of houses means that the external walls are not generally visible. The west gable however, is exposed, and illustrates the form of the stable: the double-pitch roof indicates the aisles which stand beneath the lower pitch, and the first-floor stable is beneath the upper pitch, lit by a ridge lantern running its length. The east gable, originally overlooking the covered yard, and visible from Pitfield Street, has four blind windows with projecting sills.

The carriageway entrance is at 66A Buttesland Street; it is a wide, three-centred arch in gauged brick, and the sides are lined in blue engineering brick with curb stones at the base, to withstand collisions. There are timber plank double doors with iron straps enclosing the forecourt. Above the archway are three floors of accommodation; the first and second floors each have two windows with segmental arched heads, and the third floor has an oeil de boeuf in the shallow gable.

INTERIOR: the stable has aisles running the length of the north and south sides. These have kingpost roof trusses and a glazed outer pitch. Between the aisles, on the ground floor, are four large bays separated by load-bearing brick walls and cast-iron columns and timber beams supporting the hollow-tile ‘fireproof’ floor above, which retains the ‘Patent Paving and Construction Co’ surface paviors. There is a shallow stair at the east, with later concrete treads overlying the original ceramic-pavior horse ramp, leading to a heavy fire-proofed stable door with iron strap hinges and fixings. The first floor is open to the roof, which has queen post trusses and a glazed ridge lantern. The walls are bare brickwork, and there is a plastered band along both long sides. Towards the east end are taking-in doors, and at the west end a substantial timber stall partition on a low brick wall, with a cast iron newel (bearing the LGOC motif). A sloped ramp leads into a small room with a heavy timber roof structure with a clerestory light.

The interior of 66A Buttesland Street was not inspected.