Lamb Building (Building 70), Kingston Mills

Lamb Building (Building 70), Kingston Mills

The Lamb Building is part of a former rubber manufacturing factory built around 1916 and designed in part by architect E.J.C. Manico. It was originally used for the manufacture of rubber flooring and hose pipes.

The building is constructed with a reinforced concrete frame and brick panels to the north and east elevations, while the principal facades to the west and south are faced in Bath stone. It is two storeys tall with a flat roof and trapezoidal in plan.

The west elevation onto Silver Street features four bays with paired windows in each bay. All windows have segmental heads with projecting sills and keystones, and metal glazing bars divide each window into 16 panes. The south riverside elevation is divided vertically into five bays by shallow pilasters. Each bay contains a single segmental-headed metal window. String courses separate the storeys and sit above the first floor, with a shallow parapet and a large chamfered plinth at roof level. The north elevation has brick panels separated by pilasters, also arranged in five bays. Four bays contain rectangular metal windows, with loading bays at the left end. Lower right hand window openings are blocked. The east elevation comprises four bays with external concrete frame staircases in the north and south bays providing access into the building and connecting to roof level. First floor window openings are blocked except for the southern bay, which has a flat-headed metal window. The ground floor connects to the west end of a former tyre casting workshop dating to around 1911.

Internally, both ground and first floors contain large undivided areas with square chamfered columns of the concrete frame evenly spaced throughout.

The building employs the Kahn system of construction, in which longitudinal reinforcement bars in the concrete are connected to wings or branches rising at 45 degrees. The concrete frame was manufactured by the Trussed Concrete Steel Company Ltd in London and assembled on site. The use of reinforced concrete construction provided an ideal solution for building on made-up ground alongside the river, offering advantages of low cost, rapid construction, fire resistance, durability and vibration resistance.

The site originated as part of the Kingston Mill complex, a former cloth manufacturing facility. In the mid-19th century, Stephen Moulton, an associate of American Charles Goodyear, established a rubber manufacturing factory on the vacant site. In 1891 the company entered partnership with a London rubber manufacturer and became known as Spencer, Moulton and Co, subsequently expanding. The Avon Rubber Company acquired the company in 1956 and continued rubber manufacture at Kingston Mills until closure in 1992.

The special interest of the Lamb Building resides in its use of reinforced concrete frame construction, demonstrating early 20th-century advances in civil engineering. Whole concrete frame buildings surviving from before the inter-war period are relatively rare, particularly examples of individual systems such as Kahn's. The building is also significant for its historical association with rubber production at Bradford-on-Avon and its contribution to the townscape.