Northwood Police Station Including Police Lamp, Call Box, Boundary Fence And Gates

Northwood Police Station

This police station was built in 1910 to designs by John Dixon Butler, architect and surveyor to the Metropolitan Police. It has undergone only minor alterations since its completion.

The building is constructed of red brick in an Old English style with half-timbered elevations, steep-pitched tile roofs with gabled dormers, tall brick chimneys and stone dressings. Its prominent corner position on Murray Road has allowed two principal elevations of architectural quality—to the north and east—while the rear is more functional.

The eastern elevation features a central stone porch, a six-light mullion and transom window to the right, and two casement windows above set within half-timbered dormers that break through the overhanging eaves. A single-storey cell block extends to the left of this elevation. The principal northern elevation is half-timbered with three projecting gable ends, one slightly jettied with a polygonal bay window with stone surrounds at ground floor level. The half-timbering is varied, incorporating curved braces, and the combination of multiple roof pitches, tall chimneys and varied fenestration creates an organic appearance. A Tudor-arched doorway with recessed porch sits at the centre, and irregularly placed windows—casements with timber mullions and transoms on upper storeys, timber sashes at ground floor—follow the grain of the elevations. The timber-framing and window arrangement continue along the western return, terminated by a broad brick chimney stack. The rear, which enclosed a small yard, is more municipal in character with hipped tile roofs and timber sashes set in rubbed red brick arches. Throughout the building, the craftsmanship is of a high standard, particularly in the brickwork. Original doors and window joinery survive in all original openings, as does the original timber boundary fence.

The interior retains much of its original character. The reception area, accessed through an original wood front door and glazed vestibule screen, features a terrazzo floor and polished wood desk, though both have experienced some modern alterations. The large office space with its bay window remains undivided. A passage leads to the staircase, which has a timber handrail and metal balustrade. The upper storeys contain a number of small rooms with no original fireplaces and little historic joinery. The single-storey cell block to the rear has small windows high in its walls, but the subdivision into individual cells no longer survives; it may always have been a communal cell.

A police lamp stands near the entrance. Also present is a 1930s police call box: a narrow rectangular cast iron post painted blue with an arched head surmounted by a circular glass lens mounted in a finial, which houses a modern telephone. The post is identified by a panel reading 'Police Public Call Post' above cast initials MP flanking a crown, with panels on other sides reading the same or simply 'Police'. Two timber gates and a boundary fence with chamfered posts in a simple Arts and Crafts-style design are contemporary with the police station and contribute to its setting.

John Dixon Butler succeeded his father to the position of architect and surveyor to the Metropolitan Police in 1895, serving until his death in 1920. During this period he designed over 200 police stations and courts, and his tenure is notable for the architectural quality of his designs. Dixon Butler's stations typically employ a domestic style, sensitive to the context of newly developed suburban areas, yet with strong municipal qualities such as handsome iron railings, inscribed lintels identifying the building as a police station, and other stone dressings. Northwood exemplifies the architect's versatility. Few of his stations respond as sensitively to local context—the grain of development following the Metropolitan Railway's arrival in 1887 and the rural origins of what had been a Middlesex village still within living memory in the Edwardian period. The Old English style adopted here is rare in a Metropolitan Police Station and appears to have been reserved for stations on the far reaches of the Metropolitan Line (such as Pinner) or locations with a particularly rural character, such as Kew.

The Metropolitan Police Force Surveyorship was established in 1842, thirteen years after Sir Robert Peel's Metropolitan Police Act of 1829. From the first purpose-built police station at Bow Street in 1831, new stations were built throughout the nineteenth century, particularly in the late 1880s following political unrest and high-profile events such as the Whitechapel Murders. Victorian police stations were accordingly located prominently with easy street access to advertise police presence to an anxious public. Design responded to contemporary political and social concerns: following a diphtheria case at Rotherhithe police station in the 1880s, separate accommodation of police officers and prisoners was recommended. This was reversed in the 1890s after a volatile police demonstration at Bow Street, when it was deemed wise to house constables within stations under the supervision of on-duty officers. By Dixon Butler's time, an established formula had emerged: stations combined police accommodation and cells, provided separate access for police, prisoners and public, and gave consideration to prisoner welfare.