Fire Station

The fire station, built in 1901, was designed by the London County Council Architects’ Department Fire Brigade Section. It is a romantic building exhibiting a modified Art and Craft style with Japanese influences. The structure is three storeys high, with an attic and basement, and features six windows arranged in a somewhat irregular pattern. It has a high-pitched, swept tiled roof with deep eaves and six hipped gabled dormers. Each dormer incorporates curling wrought iron horns at the corners, designed to evoke an Oriental aesthetic. Tall chimneys are constructed of stock brick. The upper two floors are pebbledashed with a stone string course separating the second floor. The ground floor is made of red brick with an overhanging pent roof extending around the left return. Canted bays, extending the full height of the building, are located at the right and in the centre of the upper floors, flanking the two appliance entrances on the ground floor. Stone dressings are used on all windows, which have casements of varying lights; some have transoms, and others have bars. A battered octagonal tower is set into the right return wall, rising above the roof to a louvred wooden belfry. The tower has a high pyramidal roof with a very deep eaves soffit accentuated by wrought iron horns at the angles. A gold-lettered inscription affixed to the first-floor wall reads "LCC Fire Brigade Station, AD 1901".