Clortecnic No 20 (Clortecnic) With Attached Wall And Outbuildings

This is a former fire station, now used as offices, dating from 1890. It is located in Chertsey and features a courtyard plan with the original engine house on the west side, a mortuary chapel and stable with a loft above on the east side, and enclosing walls at either end.

The building is constructed of orange-pink brick in a Flemish bond pattern with a Welsh slate roof. The engine house’s north (gable) front features a C20 shop-style window filling what were formerly two archways, with relieving arches above. The first floor has a tall, narrow, central arched niche flanked by paired sash windows under cambered brick arches with stone sills and a blue brick cill band. A date plaque is set into the gable and sits above the blue-brick band. Decorative brickwork adorns the eaves, rising from brick corbels, and a louvred bellcote with gables and a lead-covered spire topped with a weather vane sits on the ridge. The return sides have brick pilasters and a lower, pent-roofed bay to the right. The wall continues to the right, approximately three metres high and features blocked openings. Like the return sides, the left return has windows replaced by C20 doors.

The single-storey chapel has two bays, and the two-bay stable is taller and projects forward into the courtyard. The chapel’s north gable front has some renewed brickwork, blue-brick quoins, corbels at the upper level, and framing around the gable oculus, mirroring the engine house’s treatment. The courtyard front of the chapel has windows at the upper level, whilst the stable has a door, a window, a loft door (now window), and a C20 extension connects it to the engine house at the rear yard wall – this extension is not of special interest.

A red brick wall, in stretcher bond, stands on the north side of the yard with chamfered blue-brick coping approximately two metres high, featuring a wide entry on the right flanked by square piers with gabled tops.

Inside, the chapel has a collared rafter roof with boarded construction. The stable contains a narrow staircase leading to the loft. The bellcote housed an air-raid warning siren during the Second World War. The building is a well-preserved example of an early fire station.