Former Cooper Cars Company workshop and showroom

Former Cooper Cars Company workshop and showroom

This sports car workshop and showroom was built around 1958 for Charles Cooper, designed by Richard Maddock on the site of his earlier garage. A second-storey draughtsman's office was added around 1960. From 1965 onwards, the building was used as a police car depot and forensics laboratory.

The building is constructed of red brick, rendered on the side elevations, with concrete dressings. Windows are of steel and aluminium. The later aluminium covering of the rear workshop area roof is not of special interest.

The plan consists of a flat-roofed, two-storey office block to the north-west of the site, square in plan but with a concave frontage. A later timber-framed draughtsman's office sits set back on the roof and is accessed via a mesh-enclosed external steel stair. To the rear is a single-storey workshop area with a pitched roof giving way to a flat roof towards the rear. It is accessed via a flat-roofed, single-storey entrance block on the south-west side of the site.

The concave brick street frontage has two storeys of twelve aluminium-framed windows with transoms, set in a concrete surround and divided above the ground floor by matchboard panelling. Directly above and below the concrete surround is a brick soldier course. The brick parapet has concrete coping and later tubular steel safety railings. The main entrance, projecting at the forward point of the curved frontage, has a quadrant-shaped concrete hood supported on a brick pier rising from a low side wall and is otherwise plain. Above it is a four-pane steel-framed window. On the other side of the frontage is a single-storey garage entrance with replacement steel roller doors under a concrete lintel. The rendered north-east elevation has multi-framed steel-framed Crittall windows to both storeys. The south-west elevation is blind. The additional top-floor draughtsman's office has large square timber-framed windows with plywood panels below. It opens onto a sun terrace paved with concrete tiles.

The interior is divided into office and originally showroom space in the main block and workshop space to the rear. The ground floor office partitions date from the period of police occupation, when the space was converted from mainly showroom, and are not of special interest. Contemporary fittings and doors are also not of special interest. The upper floor of the office block is accessed via a concrete stair from the entrance lobby at the north-west corner. The lobby has a police reception counter which is not of special interest. The stairs retain their original iron balusters and wooden handrail. A suite of four original offices occupies the front of the upper floor, including Charles Cooper's office which retains original wood panelling to dado height. The rear of the upper floor is occupied by a large office with an internal Crittall window overlooking the workshop. The internal walls of all offices have glazed panels in metal frames above dado height. Later plastic trunking is not of special interest. A central corridor ends at a door giving access to a gantry over the workshop. Another door from the corridor accesses the external metal stair to the draughtsmen's office on the flat roof. This has later partitions and fittings which are not of special interest.

The workshop interior is essentially a single large space with a concrete floor, reached via the large flat-roofed vehicle entrance at the south-west of the building. This area has an entrance to the office block with a later door and glazed panel. On the opposite wall is a large glass-fronted tool or display cabinet. At the north end of the workshop is an area with two inspection pits, shielded by an original partition wall to the south. This area backs onto the enclosed boiler room and has an entrance to the rear of the office block with a later door. The pitched roof of the workshop is supported on five steel roof trusses.

A small concrete block store occupies the south end of the boiler room. Further concrete block rooms occupy the north-east and south-east corners. The large south-east room was built during the period of use as a police forensics laboratory and is surrounded by tubular steel railings at the north end. None of these later insertions are of special interest.