A private tour inside Lambeth Fire Station, London Fire Brigade's Art Deco HQ

A few years back I was lucky to be invited inside the former London Fire Brigade HQ on Albert Embankment designed by EP Wheeler, embellished with works by Bayes and Babb. 

This opportunity had come about during a Zoom chat after my online talk about demolished London Art Deco buildings when Peter Rickard, a fireman at LFB who was sometimes stationed at the Lambeth building, asked me if I'd like to visit the interior. Er... yes please!

I apologise for taking so long to write this up, my excuse being that I wanted to tie it in with any news about the building going forward. I simply let the idea slip until now because the LFB recently announced that their museum will be reinstated at Lambeth. Phew! Ian wrote about it here. However, I am still unaware what will happen to the upper floors.

On 9th March 2021 I arrived at this Grade II listed building camera in hand to meet Peter. I think he was concerned about what was going happen to this magnificent building and was pleased to find a kindred spirit. I'd only once before ever been inside, restricted to the gorgeous foyer area to see the sculptural pieces, memorials and suchlike during what I guess what an Open House Weekend many moons ago. Though I do recall a small museum and information panels in that space. 

Peter led me at first across the floor where the fire engines are kept, stopping to say hello to the working staff, past staircases with marvellous Art Deco railings to another set of stairs and up to the areas used as offices and for recreation.

The octagonal shaped room is on the rear of the building overlooking the car park and inside it has the feel of being on a boat or, due to those tropical plants and linear balconies, at a run down Mediterranean holiday hotel.

A test dummy on the floor below made it look as if someone didn't enjoy their holiday!

The building is huge and contains many rooms but at the time of visiting only a small percentage were in active use as offices. Narrow corridors on the eight levels lead to what were offices, living spaces, shower rooms, and communal/recreation rooms with fabulous views across and along the Thames.

I now cannot recall if Peter said that firemen ever stay overnight now, but there is evidence that this was the case in years gone by, just check out one of the groovy bathrooms. What was that beige colour called?

Much of the building, especially on the upper floors, was clearly suffering from damp and water ingress, and many window frames were rusty. It's clear the utilities are mostly out of date, ditto the sanitaryware. Old coloured bathroom suites sell for decent money on eBay and reclamation sites like these days, so I hope when they do start renovations that the don't just dump it all.

A later extension at the rear (1980s?) – the interior looked like a film crew had just left the building. 

I wonder what's to become of all the empty and unused rooms? 

This facility had previously housed hundreds firemen and many more vehicles but today is only partly in use with many areas, especially on the upper floors, in dire need of more than a little love and affection.  There's a lot of general wear and tear to attend to, let along an upgrade of necessities.

What do you do with a building this size? 

It could be converted into a hotel or a hostel perhaps, but the amount of renovation and repairs needed to make it fit for purpose would be restrictive to say the least.

Any news/updates most welcome.

I'll write about the exterior separately another day but it might take me 5 years to get there!

On the tiles at Doulton Lambeth

Happy January everyone.

Let's start the year by looking at some gorgeous tiles.

If you walk five minutes from the south side of Lambeth Bridge and head down Black Prince Road, you will see a Victorian Gothic masterpiece coming in to view. This was once the ofiices and manufactury of Doulton, Lambeth, later to become Royal Doulton.

At the time this building was constructed, Doulton's style was earthy blues and ochres, with the emphasis on good quality workmanship. This is evidenced on the building itself which is cleverly designed to be a street-facing advertisment, showing off a cross-section of some of the syles of designs that were on offer at that time, both glazed and unglazed. Beautiful examples are arranged around the windows and doors as well as higher up the building. Sadly the letters thet spelled the comapny's name have been chipped off. I know not whay, or where they might be now. Do stop for a closer look next time you are in the area.

I have created this montage of the tiles that run underneath the street-level windows (not shown in the pics above) – they look marvellous all together – tiletastic!

I've written about Doulton's work at other locations here.

Another visit to Lower Marsh – barrows and arrowsI still think there must be an old painted ad and a lost ghostsign

Back in March 2014 I wrote about Lower Marsh and its demise as a once thriving market street. And then followed it up with a piece about the old costermongers' barrows along that street with their carved stamps.
I was back there recently and so I snapped a few pics for an update:

There were only four barrows left on my most recent visit.

These lovely old barrows are now relics of a bygone time. Earlier this year The Gentle Author wrote a full and interesting piece about the last few days in the workshop of Hiller Brothers Barrow Makers, a company name that features on some of the ones in Lower Marsh. See also an earlier post written about the barrows of Spitalfields.
I am always saddened to see trades like these fade away in the face of progress. As an occasional market trader myself I have noticed that the style of market stalls on offer these days is ever-changing. For casual events it's rare to be allocated a standard metal frame with decent hanging space and cover – often it's either tables from a community centre or pop-up open-sided marquees. And Christmas markets are now more likely to be Bavarian-style wooden shacks. Surely if people want to visit a market of that type it would be better to go to mainland Europe to get the real deal? Can't we offer the tourists an English Victorian-style Christmas instead? I am sure they'd love that. Without the paupers and pickpockets of course.
Anyway, I digress, as usual.
I spotted some other changes in Lower Marsh, and two things in particular:

I still think there must be an old ad under that red paint above the old Artichoke Pub

On the side of Sino Thai Restaurant, on the corner of Leake Street, there is a nice addition – an arrow of little nesting boxes created by http://wearewaterloo.co.uk/news/feathered-friends. How lovely.

But at the end of Vauxhall end of the street I see that a new building now obliterates the ghostsign that once read, "Dover Castle Proprietors / Pioneer Catering / Luncheons & Dinners / [...] Prices / [...] Stout". See the fourth pic, above right, for how it looks today.
The rebuilt New Dover Castle pub was actually on the opposite corner of the street at 172 Westminster Bridge Road and is now the Walrus Bar and Hostel.

The pavement signs of Borough

Here are two examples of what were originally intended to be informative signs embedded into manhole covers on and around Borough High street.

But alas, as you can see, some of the letters have magically lifted off or just flown away.
I have yet to find one that doesn't have some letters missing so I will make a fairly educated guess that some mischievous folk are having a whale of a time prising off individual letters to hilarious effect.
Ooh my sides have split.