Enterprise House

Enterprise House is a former gramophone factory, later used as warehousing and industrial units, constructed in 1912 in Hayes on Blyth Road. Designed by the Trussed Concrete Steel Company, with senior design work by E Owen Williams, the building is notable for its early example of reinforced concrete construction. It utilizes the Kahn system of reinforcement, patented in 1903 in Detroit, USA. The structure features a reinforced concrete frame with painted brick infill. It is unusual for its date in that the concrete frame is expressed externally as part of the architectural composition.

The building has a flat roof with north-facing rooflights to the rear and an irregular E-shaped plan. A prominent rooftop water tank, supported on a concrete frame treated as a tripartite arch to the street front, marks the building's offset centre. The street facade presents a 1-10-3-5 bay composition, with the central three-bay section containing a staircase around a central lift shaft. Small-pane metal windows with central opening casements are present throughout. An iron railing borders the roof. The sides and rear of the building are similar, with projecting framing indicating the original intention for further extension on the east side and rear. The treatment of the reinforcement bars at the top of the columns as a decorative capital is a distinctive feature of this period's concrete construction, also visible internally.

The building represents Sir E Owen Williams’s first known work; he became a significant engineer turned architect, recognized for projects for Boots, the Daily Express, and British Overseas Airways Corporation. It holds importance as an early reinforced concrete building where the frame is deliberately exposed rather than concealed. The rooftop watertank has given the building the local nickname 'Little Chicago'.