Electricity Showrooms And Offices

Electricity showrooms and offices were built between 1939 and 1942 by Robert Atkinson for the County Borough of Croydon. The building is framed and clad in Portland stone and contrasting marbles and has a flat roof. It occupies a prominent corner site with a concave centrepiece and fronts Wellesley Road with an eight-bay facade, and Dingwall Avenue with a six-bay return which incorporates a carriage entrance to a circular courtyard. The building is four storeys high with an attic. The central concave facade, four windows wide, is set between projecting ribs and has early signage within a blind parapet. Bronze double doors are set back within a heavily moulded black marble surround, accessed by steps, and sit under a curved canopy with round lights built into soffit mouldings, extending along the Wellesley Road facade. The remaining elevations feature square bronze windows with margin lights, set within a Moderne facade treated as a grid of vertical and horizontal bands that emphasizes the frame. Broader projecting bays are located at either end, with a set-back concave staircase bay to the south. The Wellesley Road ground floor is clad in pale cream marble, with large bronze showroom windows situated between substantial faceted moulded piers, set on a granite plinth and inscribed 'COUNTY BOROUGH OF CROYDON ELECTRICITY DEPARTMENT'. The upper floors of the Dingwall Avenue facade are of similar style; the ground floor features a contrasting dark granite band outlining the carriage entrance, leading to a courtyard intended to serve a cookery demonstration hall that was never constructed. The circular ground floor is designed as an infilled loggia featuring Portland stone columns under a cyma-moulded cornice and blind parapet, with bronze tripartite glazing. Carved square urns, representing "fire," "air," "earth," "water," "time," "energy," "flight," "Elysium," and "Hesperides," are placed atop the column capitals. Stone steps and balustrades are on either side. The interior has been remodelled.