Description

963/0/10160 THE POLYGON
20-DEC-04 Clapham
The Lodge, formerly Clapham Old Fire S
tation

GV II

Also Known As:
The Lodge, formerly Clapham Old Fire Station, OLD TOWN, Clapham
Former fire station, later house. Built in 1868, Architect Edward Cresy Junior (1824-1870), architect for the London Fire Brigade. Gothic style. Built of polychrome brickwork, stock brick in Flemish bond with bands and alternate voussoirs in red brick. Slate roof with four brick chimneystacks which have been reduced in height, terminating in a moulded band. Symmetrical design of two storeys with four windows to the front, five windows to the rear, sash windows with horns but without glazing bars. All ground floor windows have a dripmould. Moulded brick cornice and plinth. Both front and rear elevations have a central projecting pediment with oculus which produces a cruciform plan.
EXTERIOR: The front elevation pediment has two arched windows to the first floor and retains two large arches on the ground floor which originally supported the gates for the fire engines. When the building was converted into a house these were filled in with a large early C20 pointed arched window to match the existing windows on the right side and the left side opening had double doors inserted with a casement window above. The remaining windows are flat-arched windows to the first floor and pointed arched windows to the ground floor. The rear elevation has three pointed arched sash windows to each floor of the pediment, the central ground floor window blocked. The remaining windows are flat-arched sashes to the first floor and pointed arches to the ground floor. The side elevations are windowless.
INTERIOR: Original joinery survives, including original staircase with stick balusters and square newel posts, moulded door and window architraves and four-panelled doors.
HISTORY: Before 1868 the site of Clapham Old Fire Station was occupied by an earlier fire station erected by the local vestry. At first the intention was to adapt and use the earlier building but finally the vestry of Clapham decided to build a new fire station. It was built for £615 by a local builder, J Blackmore,
and was operational by 9 October 1868. In 1902 the LCC built a new Fire Station in Old Town. When the 45 year lease expired in 1912 Clapham Old Fire Station was transferred to the LCC for use as a residence for the officer in charge of the Common and other service purposes and it has remained in domestic use. Cresy is known to have designed 26 fire stations but only two others survive substantially complete, one of these with a later extension, and Clapham Old Fire Station is the only suburban example to survive.

A substantially complete suburban fire station of 1868 designed by Edward Crecy Junior, a rare survival and one of the earliest purpose-built fire stations in Britain.

[Unpublished paper by Andrew Saint "The Architecture of the London Fire Brigade", RIBA exhibition 1981.]

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27087068

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  County Durham (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England) by Elizabeth Williamson Nikolaus Pevsner(1983-03-11)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Surrey (The Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Building Small Projects (New Best of Fine Woodworking)
• 
  ENGLAND GUIDE TO POST WAR LISTED: A Guide to Post-war Listed Buildings
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)