Central Fire Station, Birmingham

Birmingham’s Central Fire Station, with its 100 ft clock tower, provides a striking closure of the view along the city’s Corporation Street. Designed in 1935 by the city’s chief engineer Herbert Humphries, the triangular-shaped building is not listed but it does falls within the Steelhouse Lane Conservation Area.

AHP’s role was to provide an assessment of the station’s historical development and, by making a comparative study of other inter-war fire stations, make an expert judgement about how historically and architecturally important the building is, and how technologically advanced it was. Although contemporary accounts praised the building as “the last word in fire stations” and “the finest [fire station] in the country…”, it was AHP’s job to provide a truly objective appraisal using country-wide analysis.

Our report concluded that although the streamlined classical style of the building was not unusual or innovative for its time, the building’s modernist drill tower, the survival of the unusual station plan and the original installation of cutting-edge 1930s technology could weigh in favour of grade II spot listing.

Public

Central Fire Station, Birmingham ›
Manchester Square Fire Station, London ›

Commercial

203-221 Regent Street, London ›
Bolton Market Hall, Lancashire ›

Town

7 St James’s Square, Westminster ›
9 & 11 Duke Street, London ›

Country

New Lodge, Windsor ›
Plas Newydd, Anglesey ›

Ecclesiastical

St George’s Church, Bloomsbury ›
St James’s Church, Liverpool ›