Unigate Dairies

Unigate Dairies, West Wickham

Originally a stable range built around 1890 as stabling for Wickham Hall, serving Gustave Mellin, the baby food manufacturer. The architect was possibly Walter Millard, who designed the main house and was an assistant to William Burges and G E Street. Millard attempted to establish a French-style atelier in the Arts and Crafts style in London.

The building is constructed of roughcast with a tiled plinth and slate roofs with roughcast chimneystacks. It is arranged around three sides of a courtyard, comprising one storey with attics and irregular fenestration, principally sash windows or pivoting casements.

The central feature of the courtyard's east front is a distinctive clocktower rising from a square plinth with moulded wooden cornice. The tower tapers upwards and is surmounted by a wooden cupola with an ogee-headed lead dome, finial, and metal weathervane. Below this are three flat-roofed 4-light dormers, eight cambered 16-pane sashes, and a large central round-headed arched opening with brown-tiled surround.

The north wing, originally the coach house, has two flat-roofed dormers and a gable with a twentieth-century window and two roughcast chimneystacks. The ground floor originally contained four coach doors, replaced after 1931 by sash windows. The east gable front features a first-floor five-light oriel and two oculi below, with corner tiled pilasters. To the north stands a two-storey flat-roofed tower with mullioned and transomed casements and an open pediment to the first floor.

The south wing is similar to the north wing but now has a later twentieth-century brick extension at ground floor. The east gable contains no ground-floor windows. A two-storey tower to the south has a doorcase with tiled surround and flat-roofed wooden cornice on brackets.

The west elevation facing Kent Road displays three tall flat-roofed hayloft doors with brackets and remains of hoists. The ground floor contains seven cambered 24-pane sashes with horns and a cambered doorcase with deep fanlight to the left. To the right are three cambered openings with pivoting casements.

The northern stable range has an east front with three cambered dormers and a series of cambered pivoting casements. The west front has ten cambered pivoting casements. To the south is a taller pavilion with a square wood and lead cupola with ornamental finial, and a one-bay section with a cambered-headed door on pintle hinges. At the extreme north is a two-storey pavilion with hayloft door and louvred gablets. A one-storey range facing north contains three windows and a chimneystack, possibly originally a tackroom.

Interior

The former stabling to the north has an eight-bay arch-braced wooden roof supported on corbels, brown glazed tiled walls (now painted), and a narrow wooden staircase to the hayloft. The southern range has a metal-framed roof. Some twentieth-century partitions, suspended ceilings, and staircase have been introduced.

History

Wickham Hall was demolished in 1931. The stables were subsequently sold to United Dairies as a milk depot, as horses were still in use for milk deliveries at that time. Later, a printing works occupied most of the Kent Road part of the buildings.