Electricity Transformer Station

TQ 2978 SE WESTMINSTER MORETON STREET (south east side)

110/10142 Electricity Transformer Station

GV II*

Electricity transformer station with garden on top. Design won in competition in 1961 by John Darbourne. Detailed and built in 1964-7 by Darbourne and Geoffrey Darke for Westminster City Council. Darke the architect in charge for this element. In-situ reinforced concrete construction, grit-blasted, with part load-bearing brick walls clad in multi-red hand-made facing bricks, with raked joints. Roof paved with similar red bricks and planted as a playground and garden. Square plan, largely submerged in the basement level of the Victorian houses previously on the site. Eight large transformers and coolers, with switch rooms, batteries and other auxiliary rooms and staff facilities. Garden on top. Elevations of sub-station in Dudokian style, powerfully massed, with vertical bands of bricks and teak louvres at either end, and projecting central element supported on exposed concrete beams. Two central teak doors with louvres either side. North elevation similar but more regular. On top the garden has a high wall with trellis openings, through which the planting overhangs in the manner encouraged at Lillington Gardens. The transformer station, originally with a football pitch on top, was the first part of Lillington Gardens to be built. It is one of the most abstract elements of the scheme and is a powerful composition.

Listing NGR: TQ2958478439