Building record 1341500000 - Police Station, Moreton Road

Grade II. County police station, now satellite police station. Dated 1892 with minor C20 alterations. County Surveyor (possibly R.J. Thomas, and C.H. Riley for early-C20 office extension). Red brick with limestone and blue brick dressings. Slate half-hipped roof with brick chimneystacks and ornamental tile ridges and finials. 2-storey, L-Plan in Gothic Revival style. PLAN: Offices to main range with domestic wing to side. Cells to lower ground floor at rear with access to enclosed exercise yard. EXTERIORS: WEST elevation comprises main range with advanced crosswing to right and early-C20 office to left. Door to left of main range replaced C20 under pointed arch head of red and blue brick with incised limestone keyblock springing from limestone impost blocks. Arch filled with limestone tympanum inscribed: 1892 / COUNTY / POLICE / STATION. To right, pair of sash windows, each under similar arch heads but smaller, and tympana inscribed with foliate decoration to match keyblocks. Buttress to side with stone dressings. Sashes are 9-over-1 and pair has continuous stone cill. Similar window to first floor under hipped state dormer roof. Advanced bay with half-hipped gable and ground and first floor sashes under pointed arches, similarly detailed. SOUTH elevation with central entrance under hipped roof porch on curved wood brackets flanked by sashes under pointed arches, similarly detailed to front. Sash over porch. To right, lower range with door and sash under brick segmental heads and small barred window with stone lintel, a small gabled range (enclosing cells), and lower still the blank wall of the exercise yard with blue brick copings. NORTH elevation with advanced office extension, then pointed arch window, similarly detailed to front. Building continues down the hill to the cell range and wall of the exercise yard then garage altered C20.
INTERIOR: Overall plan form survives with offices and charge room to front, kitchen and parlour to right and cells to the rear. Steps down to cell area with red and black tiled floor and lit by barred clerestory window to internal courtyard. 4 cells each with thick brick walls, steel bolted doors and barred clerestory windows to exercise yard. Stone steps to exterior exercise yard. Built-in cupboards, 4-panel doors, two staircases to upper rooms each with small fireplace and metal grate. SUBSIDIARY: Brick gate pier attached to office extension with its pair attached to brick boundary wall with blue brick copings and blue brick plinth. Gates attached to gate piers and placed to form boundary with the station front and the exercise yard and garaging to the rear. HISTORY: Built to fulfil requirements that the C18 Old Gaol [CASS 01926] no longer met (B1).