Rodboro Buildings

This is a factory building dating from around 1900, with extensions added around 1903. Constructed primarily of brown brick with red brick dressings on a steel frame, the ground floor features rendered cladding and risers. The roof is slate, with a hipped section on the left-hand range and parallel, part-glazed gabled ranges to the right. The building occupies an island site, its north-east corner curved around the junction of Bridge and Onslow Streets.

The factory is three storeys high, with gable-lit attics, and has stacks located at the junction of the ranges. The Bridge Street facade features a double gable-end range of twelve bays, with giant pilasters under moulded caps and further giant pilasters in the centre of each range. The gables have brick dentil bands and brick string courses on the first and ground floors, with a cornice to the eaves. Keyed, brick-edged rounds top each gable, and each gable on the first and second floors has four fixed windows with glazing bars; the centre four panes are pivoting. Gauged brick soldier arches are above each window. Original ground floor showroom windows are now blocked, and the central pilaster piers have been truncated.

To the left, a curved five-bay range features pier buttresses articulating between the bays, and has moulded brick eaves. Blocked ground floor fenestration is also visible on this range. A further five-bay range faces Onslow Street with similar articulation and fenestrations, with square floral panels in the capitals of the ground floor piers. The rear elevation has irregular window placement, with cambered heads over the windows. There are seven windows across both floors to the right, of varying widths, and nine across the gabled ranges. Blocked doors and windows are present on the ground floor.

Originally, the factory housed the manufacturing plant and equipment for producing touring cars, motor buses, and commercial vehicles, including fire engines, for the Dennis Company. It was also used for experimental work, notably the development of the Dennis "worm-driven" rear axle. The ground floor originally served as showrooms, while manufacturing took place on the upper floors, making this one of the first purpose-built car factories in England and potentially the world. Original building plans are held by Guildford Borough Council, and company archives are deposited at the Guildford Muniment Room.