Central Fire Station

The Central Fire Station in Barrow-in-Furness is a fire station built in 1911 by the Borough Surveyors under Arthur Race. It features red brick construction with buff terracotta dressings and slate roofs. The engine house is a single storey with an attic, designed with a 1:4:1 bay arrangement and a three-storey tower at the rear left.

The engine house has four segmentally-arched vehicle entrances supported by banded piers and large consoles on raised keystones. An enriched modillioned cornice projects at the piers, which continue as parapet dies. The hipped roof includes skylights and decorative octagonal ridge vents. The slightly recessed end bay on the left rises two storeys and showcases banded corner pilasters, a part-glazed panelled door within an eared architrave featuring a keystone, and a corniced panel above that reads 'ERECTED A.D. 1911'. Below an open segmental pediment with a cartouche in the tympanum, there is a terracotta band and a keyed oculus.

The square tower behind bay one rises an additional storey, featuring banded corner pilasters and an architraved doorway with balconies on either side. A modillioned cornice is located beneath the parapet with corner dies, topped by a domed cupola with a finial. Bay six mirrors bay one, but the doorway has been converted into a window, with a plaque reading 'Central Fire Station'; the pediment retains its original obelisks.

Inside, the engine house is lined with glazed brick, and the recreation room above has an arched ceiling. The station opened on December 12, 1912, at a cost of £6,000, with terracotta supplied by Burmantofts of Leeds. This fire station is a well-preserved example of the first generation built specifically for motorised appliances.