Park Works: Fire watcher's post and former refuge and staff facilities

Summary

Former air raid refuge, canteen and staff facilities (1939-40) and associated fire watcher's post (1941), part of a factory block by A P Starkey for H D Symons and Co Ltd, specialist manufacturers of electrical insulation.

Reasons for Designation

The northern two-storey wing of 18-20 Borough Road (1939-40), containing an air raid refuge, offices and a former canteen and surmounted by a fire watcher's post (1941) both by A P Starkey for H D Symons and Co Ltd, specialist manufacturers of electrical insulation, is listed Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Planning interest and legibility: a little-altered fire watcher's post and associated air raid refuge within staff facilities at the former electrical insulation factory;

* Architectural interest: the street elevation and fire watcher's post are given an attention to detail that is unusual in normally utilitarian structures;

* Documentary and historic interest: planning records, architect's drawings and correspondence describe the procurement and design of air raid facilities and added surveillance at a 'key point' factory, essential to war time production.

History

The factory at Park Works was developed from the late C19 onwards when part of the current site was occupied by a builder. Documents and architect's drawings held in the Borough's planning archive provide a vivid record of the role and expansion of the site in the inter-war period and in response to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Circa 1922 it was acquired by H D Symons & Co Ltd, producers of specialist electrical insulation, of a type used in aircraft construction, and it seems logical to assume that certainly by the late 1930s they were supplying the nearby Hawker Aircraft Works in Canbury Park Road, Kingston. Shortly after the outbreak of war, the local authority's Emergency Control File, dated 1 November 1939, identifies Park Works as a 'key point', in other words a factory that was crucial to wartime production.

The OS map for 1932 indicates the early extent of the inter-war factory: the site of the current (2015) white painted, brick, steel-framed and glazed structure behind 16 Park Road. Offset to the front of it were separate offices and stores; the extant two-storey stock brick buildings to the left of the Park Road entrance, and at one time the works also included 18 Park Road, now outside the site. In the early 1930s Symons employed the architect A P Starkey to alter and extend the original buildings, also adding a large chimney within a boiler house at the rear. In 1934 the works were extended again to the east, at the rear of 14-16 Borough Road, adding the two-storey range (now - 2015 - partially reworked) incorporating and immediately to the west of the covered way, and once more designed by A P Starkey.

The Air Raid Precautions Act of 1937 determined the voluntary provision of protection against air raids, but under the 1939 Civil Defence Act this became mandatory. Drawings from October and November 1939 detail a scheme for major extensions to Park Works (now - in 2015 -18-20 Borough Road and the attached workshops to the rear), again designed by A P Starkey, with refuges (ie a protected indoor shelters) embedded within the building and a separate air raid shelter beyond it.

From the road frontage it comprised a two-storey range with a rest room, a refuge for 70 persons and men’s WCs on the ground floor, and a canteen, staff dining room, kitchen and female cloakroom/WCs above. The refuge walls were strengthened with internal buttresses which supported robust ceiling beams, it had no windows and the external entrance was protected by a detached blast wall; inside the entrance were four lavatory cubicles. Attached at the rear was a two-storey, top-lit factory building laid out on the ground floor as stores, flanked by refuges to each side for 59 and 62 persons, and linked by an internal corridor at the rear. The refuge walls were also strengthened by internal buttresses, they were windowless and entered from the yard via baffle screens. Each refuge was fitted with benches and with four earth closets at the outer end. The upper floor was laid out, as today, as a machine room under a saw-tooth roof. The plans indicate a separate ARP surface shelter for 72 persons - refuge 4 - against the southern boundary wall; it was later converted to workshops and has been demolished.

'Key point' factories such as Park Works were expected to operate during an air raid and in December 1940, at the urgent request of H D Symons, the architect applied for a fire watcher’s post to be added above the canteen. Fire watcher's posts were not defensive, but rather were look-out posts to alert staff when it was too dangerous to continue working and to give the all-clear with minimum delay. They were commonly added to or included in essential sites such as factories and hospitals, to minimise risk and time lost. The scheme for Park Works was approved in January 1941 and it was built shortly thereafter. Rather than being purely utilitarian, as was usually the case, Starkey commented that it had ‘been designed to come in somewhat as a feature of the building’ (Starkey to the Borough Surveyor, 28 Dec 1940).

H D Symons and Co remained at Parks Works until 1971; the site continued to expand after the war and included the mid-1950s two-storey block, 14-16 Borough Road, in imitation of the adjacent 18-20 Borough Road.

A P Starkey was an architect known primarily for 1930s moderne Odeon cinemas, including the first of the streamlined Odeons, in South Harrow, Greater London (1935).

Details

Former refuge, canteen and staff facilities, dated to 1939-40, part of factory buildings for H D Symons and Co Ltd, electrical insulation specialists, with an added fire watcher's post of 1941, all by the architect A P Starkey, the Borough Road frontage in a crisp moderne manner.

MATERIALS: the building is flat roofed with masonry walls in English bond, of good quality red brick on the front and first element of the returns, reverting to a cheaper brick beyond; it has a concrete slab roof and ceilings, given extra reinforcement in the refuge. The outer faces of the fire watcher’s post are in similar good-quality red brick, elsewhere in cheaper brick, and it has a concrete slab roof. The factory is of buff brick in English bond, with later patching, with reinforced concrete ground floor ceilings and a steel truss roof.

PLAN: a two-storey, flat-roofed range, now workshops and offices. Originally there was a ground floor rest room on the street frontage, a largely internal refuge for 70 persons behind it (a strengthened indoor space designed to give some protection during an air raid) and men’s WCs; on the first floor was a canteen, staff dining room, kitchen and female cloakroom/WCs. Doorways on both levels connect to the two-storey factory building at the rear (not included in the listing). Mounted on the roof is a fire watcher’s post, reached by an external ladder.

EXTERIOR: the two-storey front range has a symmetrical 3-bay street frontage beneath a shallow brick parapet. The central ground floor part-glazed timber doors are set back between brick pilasters with stylised capitals of on-edge red tiles. On the first floor metal-framed, part-glazed doors are set in a shallow opening with horizontal single course brick quoins, and open onto a steel stair; they are flanked by a single metal-framed cross casement on each storey. The side elevations have metal-framed casements, the window and door in the former refuge, inserted post-war, suggesting a degree of replacement throughout the building. A porthole window on the west elevation lights the WC.

The fire watcher’s post is of brick with a standard depth concrete slab roof, resistant to penetration by an incendiary bomb. The north, east and west faces are in red brick in English bond, chosen to match the building below, while cheaper brick is used on the interior and rear wall. On each face is a pair of concrete observation loops, with internal asbestos sliding shutters on three sides, and a timber door in the centre of the rear wall. The architect's drawings suggest an added canopy extended beyond the rear wall. The concrete parapet walls to each side of the entrance provided a base to which sandbags were added, probably to cill height of the observation loops, to give added protection.

INTERIOR: the former refuge/canteen block has concrete floors and ceiling slabs, the ceiling of the refuge is supported on substantial beams on load bearing piers. Window cills are quarry tiled, walls are painted brick. The building has masonry stairs with a steel balustrade. Most doors are ledged and braced.

Later C20 and early C21 fixtures* and fittings* are not of special interest.
* Pursuant to s.1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 (‘the Act’) it is declared that these aforementioned features are not of special architectural or historic interest.

The attached factory building to the rear is not included in the listing.

End of official list entry

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