Avon Crescent Substation

Electricity substation, 1905-1906, by L G Mouchel of the Hennebique Concrete Company.

MATERIALS: a concrete building: a reinforced concrete internal framework on the Hennebique system, with shuttered concrete elevations. A corrugated roof covering has replaced the original patent glazing.

PLAN: the building has an irregular footprint of a right-angle triangle with a slightly concave hypotenuse, optimising its constrained plot between Avon Crescent and Cumberland Road.

EXTERIOR: the substation is a double-height building with a carefully-composed and fenestrated classical façade with ashlar scoring, with other elevations largely plain and blind, bearing the shutter marks of the construction. The principal elevation, facing north-east onto Avon Crescent with Cumberland Road to the rear, is a symmetrical composition with five, double-height Renaissance-arched window openings, now blocked, with hood moulds, keystones and sills in concrete. To either side is a wide, slightly projecting bay with a flat-arched doorway; that to the right retains a roller shutter and is missing its keystone, and each has a blocked arched window above. There is a cornice and parapet. The elevation continues as a single storey to the left, and has an oeil de boeuf window, blocked, and a second such window on the corner elevation facing the road junction. The cornice continues along the curved south-west elevation. The building has a pitched roof above the machine hall, originally glazed, and flat roofs at the angles. A conical ventilator survives on the roof.

INTERIOR: it is understood that the main machine hall is a lofty space, originally lit from above by patent glazing, and by the large arched windows of the principal elevation. The machine hall floor is said to retain evidence of the six low platforms for the converters, with wrought iron grilles set above the cable and transformer subways. A concrete framework providing the horizontal members to support a manually operated gantry crane. Cantilevered concrete galleries, linked by a steel bridge, housed the switch gear; these are believed to retain some decorative wrought iron balustrades and oak handrails. Elsewhere, areas of the white and green tiling of the original scheme are understood to survive, as do some internal doors, and that the roof is supported on a series of steel trusses.

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 1 August 2025 to update details in the description and to reformat text to current standards