P h o t o B l o g

Saturday 14 March 2009

Stalybridge Saturday: Old Fire Station



Fire Stations and other municipal buildings of around 100 years ago were designed to last. However modern fire appliances and training requirements mean that these old buildings are no longer adequate for their original purpose. So there are many of these old fire stations around which have been put to new uses.

This former fire station is in Stalybridge, on the corner of Waterloo Road and King Street. A date stone on the gable above the bay window shows the year 1904. To the left of the bay window is the town's old coat of arms.

The building is now a kitchen showroom. Two of the four doors through which the engines emerged have been made into display windows. The tower in the back yard, on which the firemen practised their ladder skills, now houses mobile phone transmitters.

Another such example of a former fire station is the one in Ashton that appeared here last year.

See Google Aerial View of this location.
See LiveSearch Birds Eye View of this location.

3 comments:

  1. Though I'm not crazy about the idea of turning old buildings into shops, I'd still rather have that than their being abandoned and left to rot or being demolished.

    This one is a lovely building. I especially like the contrasting stones just under the second story windows.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So far this new use is not too destructive or demeaning.
    Hilda is right, the building is really lovely and I think that a close detail of the masonry will be very interesting.
    Nice post and beautiful photo.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have put a closer detail of the brickwork
    here.

    It is mostly constructed of fairly standard brick, with stone being used for features above the windows and for the banding below them. Additional interest has been added by using contrasting colours of brick next to the windows and at the corners of the bay.

    The style is really quite simple compared with the greater ornamentation of buildings that was common during the Victorian era that went before. I will start posting occasional images of details of brick and stone work on buildings. I posted this example

    ReplyDelete

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