Paddington British Rail Maintenance Depot, West Block

TQ 2681 NW HARROW ROAD

1900-/40/10036 No.179 - Paddington British Rail Maintenance Depot, West Block

GV II*

Workshops, offices and boiler house of the maintenance depot for road vehicles built for British Rail's Paddington Goods Yard in 1966-8 by Paul Hamilton of Bicknell and Hamilton. Designed in 1964. Reinforced concrete frame clad on the upper floors with glazed ceramic mosaic. Flat roof. Irregular, expressionist triangular plan on four main storeys on land scooped out for the making of the elevated Harrow Road and M40 Westway. Ground-floor boiler house under projecting first floor workshops, with funnel-like chimneys. Workshops and offices above, rest rooms in tall staircase and lift block rising from broader entrance or 'stern' end. The building can be entered from the first floor roadway or exposed semi-basement. Bands of continuous metal mullion-light glazing on first and upper floors.

The interior is little altered, and has been praised for its well-detailed finishes. The main floors are open plan. Of special interest is its staircase, with continuous and sinuous ceramic-clad balustrade.

The Paddington Maintenance Depot marks the culmination of British Railways' post-war building programme, which can be appreciated as a continuous development from lightweight prefabrication to the heavy, romantic and sculptural forms seen here.

Sources Architectural Review, January 1965, p.90 Architects' Journal, 18/25 December 1968, pp.1465-75 Official Architecture and Planning, February 1969, p.151-7 Concrete, June 1974, p.35

Listing NGR: TQ2625081703