Former Clerkenwell Fire Station

Former Clerkenwell Fire Station

A former fire station with flats above, built between 1912 and 1917 to designs by HFT Cooper of the Fire Brigade Branch of the London County Council Architects' Department. The building is executed in a restrained Arts and Crafts style. A detached drill tower of later twentieth-century date stands in the yard but is not included in this listing.

The main structure is constructed of red brick laid in English bond on the principal fronts, with Portland stone dressings. The ground floor features channelled stone rustication, while a main modillion stone cornice rises above the third floor and a subsidiary cornice marks the attic storey. Arts and Crafts detailing is applied throughout, notably to the keystones of the square-headed ground-floor openings and to the attic and roof storeys. The rear elevation is built of yellow stock brick. The building is roofed with steeply pitched clay tiles and tall slab chimneystacks with moulded caps; the stacks on the return are joined at ninety degrees.

The building is roughly L-shaped, comprising four storeys plus attic and roof storey. It presents a main south-west frontage to Rosebery Avenue with an acute north-east return into Farringdon Road. The original plan contained a ground floor fire station with mess room, games room and stationmaster's room on the first floor, with flats occupying the upper storeys. A communal laundry was located at the top of the building.

The principal elevation to Rosebery Avenue displays six bays at ground floor level. Four appliance bays occupy the centre and right portion, while a pair of broad tri-partite windows with moulded cornices and plain stone recessed panels below sits to the left. The timber appliance bay doors are modern replacements. Above this, the elevation becomes symmetrical, composed of eight principal bays arranged 3-2-3. Windows are grouped in triplets to the central two bays and in pairs to the outer bays, except for the central first-floor windows which are triple windows with lintels and relieving arches. The outer bays carry a full attic storey above the main cornice and a roof storey above, while the central bays contain two storeys within the roof profile. Small-pane sashes with flush frames appear in the outer bays, executed in both segmental and square-headed forms. The first-floor windows to the central bays feature recessed stone architraves. The roof incorporates two triple flat-topped dormers with projecting eaves and brackets to the centre block, positioned above the main cornice. Full attic storeys flank these, each containing a central recessed balcony with central pier and iron railings, flanked by tripartite sash windows. Nine tall hipped nine-over-nine sashed dormers punctuate the roof; those to the outer bays incorporate balconettes with square-pattern ironwork. An LCC metal coat-of-arms is mounted to the first-floor centre bay, displaying gold lettering on blue reading 'Clerkenwell Fire Station' above the coat-of-arms and 'London County Council' below.

The shorter, asymmetrical elevation to Farringdon Road breaks forward from the Rosebery Avenue return. An appliance bay sits to the left, with an entrance flanked by two windows, both with replaced glazing. The fenestration and detailing follow the pattern of the outer bays of the main elevation, with eight windows at first-floor level and nine at second and third floors. Recessed balconies to the attic alternate with triple sashes. The three bays of the return are surmounted by a triangular gable containing a window set in moulded reveals beneath a dentilled cornice; a small hexagonal oculus punctuates the apex. The balconied dormers match those on the front elevation.

The rear elevation features a railed balcony to each floor and sash windows. At the southern end stands an original integral six-storey drill tower, square in plan with elliptical-headed openings. A reset foundation stone dated 1872, probably from an earlier fire station on the site, is preserved here.

The appliance room interior has a ceiling carried on steel girders supported on stanchions. A marble plaque on the northern side commemorates seven fire fighters from Clerkenwell Fire Station who died in service between 1871 and 1969. The main staircase features an iron balustrade. The first floor retains panelling to the former mess room and a wooden fireplace in the former stationmaster's office. Upper floors preserve joinery including doors, panelled dados, simple wooden fireplaces and airing shelves. The top-floor communal laundry contains the original horizontal sliding metal drying racks, eight rectangular china basins and seven cylindrical coppers with fire grates below, adjoined by iron furnace doors.