Lockwoods Builders Yard, Including Attached Gates, Gatepiers, Wall And Post Box

Lockwoods Builders Yard, including attached gates, gatepiers, wall and post box

A purpose-built builders yard built around 1872 or soon afterwards, when the firm A G Lockwood and Co was founded. The yard comprises a range of offices and attached individual workshops for various building trades including carpenters, joiners, plumbers and blacksmiths. The buildings are constructed mainly of stock brick with some weatherboarding and slate roofs. The complex is one storey (with semi-basement elements on the Essex Road elevation) with irregular fenestration, arranged in an L-shaped range leading to a central courtyard.

Exterior

The Grove elevation contains office buildings with attached gates, gatepiers and a section of attached wall. The building to the left is one storey, clad in weatherboarding on a burr brick plinth, gabled with slate roof. It features a sash window with glazing bars to the upper part only and a doorcase with rectangular fanlight. To the right are office buildings of burr brick with stock brick and red brick dressings, a dogtooth cornice and two chimneystacks. The front elevation has three windows with cambered heads and a further one to the return; three of these have glazing bars to the upper parts, the left-hand one being wider with a central opening light. A left-side arched doorcase contains a plank door; the right side has two cambered-headed doors with four-panelled design. Attached to the weatherboarded building are wooden plank gates with separate cart and pedestrian entrances, wooden gatepiers, and a section of burr brick wall approximately six feet high with a stepped curved brick parapet. This terminates in a brick pier with stone finial and incorporates a Victorian post box on the left-hand side.

The Essex Road elevation comprises three linked workshops, all one storey with semi-basement, built in stock brick in Sussex bond but with different rooflines and features. The left part has an asbestos-tiled roof, a brick chimneystack, four cambered-headed sashes and three cambered loading doors. The central part has a slate roof, brick chimneystack and two loading doors. The right section has a slate roof with ridge tiles, a double loading door to the left, a central brick chimneystack, four wooden ventilation louvres at the top, and six round-headed arches at the base, some retaining cast-iron covers.

The courtyard elevation is two storeys with a series of triple windows, two external wooden staircases, and pyramidal glazed skylights to the projecting ground floor in the eastern section.

Interior

Recent photographs show the office retains tongued and grooved boarded panelling, a built-in oak ledger with brass railing, a marble fireplace with semi-circular cast-iron firegrate, and a fireplace with wooden bolection moulding and blue tiles. The workshops are thought to contain original work benches and other fittings.

Historical significance

The company built a large part of the late 19th-century resort of Westgate-on-Sea. At the height of the building boom in the 1880s and 1890s, they were a major employer of building workers. The office fittings reflect the reception of important clients, while the workshop functions are reflected in the external features. Purpose-built builders yards which have not undergone major alteration are very rare.