Stables

These stables date from circa 1895 and were built for the London General Omnibus Company. The designer is unknown. The building is constructed of stock brick and white glazed brick, with concrete floors and ramped stairs. It incorporates a steel frame and timber trussed roofs, the roof covering having been recently renewed. An entrance was created through a Georgian end-of-terrace house. A sloping carriageway is paved with granite setts, alongside bollards and kerbs. The inner yard is roofed over, with a concrete floor leading to the stabling above, supported by a steel frame. A single round column is located in the north-east corner, while a supervisor’s booth is positioned in the south-west corner. A ramped stair runs along the south side.

To the west of the yard is the ground floor stable, featuring a steel frame with I-section stanchions supporting a concrete floor with a grooved, cobble-like surface. Sloping skylights are present along the south and west sides; remains of a forge are found in the south-west corner with rails set into the floor related to a former furnace. A ramped, L-shaped stair has shallow, much-repaired, grooved concrete steps. The first floor contains stabling at two levels: a large, lower area to the west, and a smaller, higher area to the east, with a trap-door opposite the top of the stairs.

The west stable has an open queen-post trussed roof with a glazed lantern spanning its full length. Trevises either side of the ramp leading up to the stable are marked with the letters "LGOCo," referring to the London General Omnibus Company. Vertical boarding is present, alongside upswept rails either side of the ramp. The east stable is smaller but similar, with a pair of matching trevises and boarding flanking the ramp.

The stables were built to accommodate 79 horses, which, being heavy draft horses used to working in teams, were stabled communally and did not require individual partitions. The London General Omnibus Company owned nearly 17,000 horses at its peak, but the company went bankrupt in 1912. The complex is of group value as a well-preserved commercial stable building, demonstrating the importance of horses in pre-20th century urban life. It is also notable for its steel frame construction, believed to be the only example of this technique used in a building of this type.