Sir David Salomons' Motor Stables, Broomhill

This range of five motor stables was built in the very early C20, replacing a still earlier range on the same site. For ease of description they will be referred to as garages 1-5 from south to north.

MATERIALS The garages are of buff brick construction, faced externally with locally quarried sandstone, matching that of the house. The roofs are slated externally, with pine match-boarding internally. The floors are of Victoria stone.

PLAN The garages are arranged as a series of long narrow rooms, separated by brick party walls (the wall between garages 2 and 3 is of vertical pine boarding). The garages face to the west, with garages 3 and 4 set back from 1 and 2, and garage 5 set back again.

Beneath the garages is a forge, a store room, the mechanic's dressing room and WC, and access to the inspection pits beneath garages 1, 2 and 3. This lower floor is reached either from a stair from garage 1, a spiral stair from garage 2, or from within the theatre behind.

EXTERIOR The stone-faced, parapeted, frontage of the garages is very simple; there is a timber-planked double-door to each garage, with a personnel door set within it. The lintels above the doors have a simple classical moulding. Behind the parapets the roofs are hipped, with skylights of Mellow's patent glazing (quarter of an inch thick, to resist hail storms).

Other than the stone facing, the garages are very similar in design to the original pre-1902 garages. The alterations which have been executed since the 1902 re-build are indistinguishable from the front (although alteration of the roofs of the extended garages can be seen in aerial photos).

INTERIOR The interiors of the garages are remarkably intact, with a number of the features which appeared in Salomons' 1902 article surviving. The joinery is of consistently good quality throughout.

The three garages with inspection pits (1, 2 and 3) retain them and their timber covers; all internal panelled doors are original; electrical fittings include wooden conduits and porcelain and brass light switches and sockets, intended for portable electric lamps. There is also signage on the doors and a number of sets of shelves, hooks and cupboards, for tools, equipment, and the large number of spare parts that were necessary in early motoring. A plastered block-work wall has been inserted into garage 1 down its length, in order to create a fire escape from the theatre.

Beneath the garages many of the fixtures and fittings of the basement level are also intact. The mechanic's dressing room is separated off from the rest of the store by a partition of corrugated iron on a timber frame. The partition has a distinctive rounded corner, which can also be seen in the plans included in Salomons' article. Again, doors, electrical fittings, cupboards and signage remain, as does the original mechanic's WC.