Park Works: Fire watcher's post and former refuge and staff facilities

Park Works: Fire watcher's post and former refuge and staff facilities

This is a two-storey flat-roofed building dating from 1939-40, designed by architect A P Starkey as part of the factory complex for H D Symons and Co Ltd, electrical insulation specialists. A fire watcher's post was added to the roof in 1941. The Borough Road frontage displays crisp moderne styling.

The main building has masonry walls in English bond, with good quality red brick on the front and first element of the returns, reverting to cheaper brick beyond. It has a concrete slab roof and ceilings, with extra reinforcement provided in the refuge section. The fire watcher's post is similarly constructed in red brick in English bond on the outer faces (north, east and west), with cheaper brick elsewhere, and topped with a concrete slab roof designed to resist penetration by incendiary bombs.

Originally, the ground floor contained a rest room facing the street frontage, a largely internal refuge space designed to accommodate 70 persons and provide some protection during air raids (a strengthened indoor space with reinforced concrete ceiling and ceilings), and men's WCs. The first floor housed a canteen, staff dining room, kitchen and female cloakroom with WCs. Doorways at both levels connect to the two-storey factory building at the rear.

The symmetrical three-bay street frontage is set beneath a shallow brick parapet. The central ground floor features part-glazed timber doors set back between brick pilasters with stylised capitals made of on-edge red tiles. On the first floor, metal-framed part-glazed doors sit in a shallow opening with horizontal single course brick quoins and open onto a steel stair, flanked by a single metal-framed cross casement on each storey. The side elevations contain metal-framed casements; a porthole window on the west elevation lights the WC. Post-war replacements are evident throughout, particularly in the former refuge.

The fire watcher's post, mounted on the roof and reached by an external ladder, has a standard depth concrete slab roof. Each of its north, east and west faces contains a pair of concrete observation loops with internal asbestos sliding shutters on three sides. A timber door is set in the centre of the rear wall. The architect's drawings indicate an added canopy extended beyond the rear wall. Concrete parapet walls flank the entrance; sandbags were probably added to cill height of the observation loops to provide additional protection. The concrete slab roof was engineered to resist penetration by incendiary bombs.

Interior surfaces are principally painted brick with concrete floors and ceiling slabs. The refuge ceiling is supported on substantial beams carried on load-bearing piers. Window cills are quarry tiled. The building has masonry stairs with a steel balustrade. Most doors are of ledged and braced construction.