Pont Street Cabmen's Shelter

Cabmen’s shelter, built 1892 by the Cabmen’s Shelter Fund to Maximilian Clarke's ‘ornamental’ design of the 1880s to replace a previous shelter of 1875.

MATERIALS: oak frame with deal cladding, painted Buckingham green.

PLAN: rectangular footprint, with open-plan galley kitchen and communal cabmen’s mess section with benches set against the walls.

EXTERIOR: shelter of nine framed bays with two end bays, set on an elevated platform. The posts and rails of the timber frame are expressed with panels of vertical boarding set between. The entrance door is on the north side with a central serving window from the kitchen galley on the west end. Two rectangular windows with pivoting hopper lights to the panel above are present on the south side. Similar windows are present on the north side, though with an additional pair of windows flanking the door. To the east end there are two central windows with large pivoting hopper lights above, also integrated within the upper panel. The roof is hipped with overhanging eaves and exposed joist ends, and there is a louvered ventilation lantern in the centre of the ridge capped with a tented rooflet. The shingle tiles are modern replacements.

INTERIOR: fittings are mostly modern, although the basic arrangement of a galley kitchen and serving hatch with a cabmen’s communal section at the opposing end is still in evidence. Replacement bench tops in the cabmen’s mess section.