Listing
Search the List

What is Listing?

Listing Guidance

Apply for Listing

Missing Pieces Project

Blue Plaque Scheme
Listing

Find out about listed buildings and other protected sites, and search the National Heritage List for England (NHLE).

Find out about listing

Terracotta tiles on the roof of Saintoft Lodge, Newton-on-Rawcliffe, Ryedale, North Yorkshire. Grade II listed © Historic England Archive DP371715
Advice
Climate Change

Heritage at Risk

Your Home

Technical Guidance

Planning

Caring for Heritage

Constructive Conservation
Advice

See our extensive range of expert advice to help you care for and protect historic places.

Get our advice

A contractor cutting bricks for the wall of the partially-restored wild and natural walled garden at Warley Place, Brentwood. Explore our technical advice section © Historic England Archive DP313199
Research
Our Research Strategy and Agenda

Research Governance

Latest Research

Research Methods

Current Research

Research Results

Support & Collaboration

Inclusive Heritage

Heritage Counts
Research

Discover and use our high-quality applied research to support the protection and management of the historic environment.

Discover our research

Archaeologist Dr David Neal discussing his illustration of the mosaic being excavated at Rutland Roman Villa with members of the University of Leicester Archaeological Services team View image DP264265 © Historic England
Images & Books
Find Photos

Search All Publications

Buy Books

The Historic England Archive
Images & Books

Historic England holds an extensive range of publications and historic collections in its public archive covering the historic environment.

Browse our collections

Children play with a doll and a pram on the cobbled Church Path in Queen Camel, Somerset, in April 1953. At the far end of the path is the tower of the Church of St Barnabas, which dates to the 14th century. Photographer: John Gay Image reference: AA091596 © Historic England Archive
Services & Skills
Education

Grants

Our Planning Services

Training & Skills

Archive Services

Heritage Action Zones

Levelling Up Places Service
Services & Skills

Find out about services offered by Historic England for funding, planning, education and research, as well as training and skill development.

Learn about our services

Heritage Apprentices in a training session on the Researching The Historic Environment module and training in Architectural Photography. Find out more about Heritage Apprenticeships © Historic England Archive DP347660
What's New
News

In Your Area

Historic England Blog

Latest Research

Heritage Online Debate

Statements

Stay up to Date
What's New

Read about our current news, projects and campaigns nationally and in your area.

Catch up with what's new

Two horsemen reading The Sportsman, 30 Oct 1902, Farnborough, Stratford-on-Avon, Warwickshire. Part of the Alfred Newton and Sons collection. Source Historic England Archive. BB98/02592
About Us
What We Do

Who We Are

How We Are Funded

Contact Us

Careers

Volunteer with Historic England
About Us

Historic England is the public body that helps people care for, enjoy and celebrate England's spectacular historic environment.

Find out more

Mountbatten House (formerly Gateway House), Basing View, Basingstoke, the former headquarters for the paper merchants Wiggins Teape by Arup Associates. Listed at Grade II. © Historic England
Sign in
Manage my account

Sign out

WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION

WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION, 4, GREYCOAT PLACE

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1214121
Date first listed:: 01-Dec-1987
List Entry Name:: WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION
Statutory Address:: WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION, 4, GREYCOAT PLACE

User submitted image — Uploaded by Charles Watson This photo may not represent the current condition of the site
View all

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Images of England Project

To view this image please use Firefox, Chrome, Safari, or Edge.

Archive image, may not represent current condition of site.

Date:: 2001-08-23
Reference:: IOE01/03603/07
Rights:: © Mr G.W. Garthwaite. Source: Historic England Archive

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1214121
Date first listed:: 01-Dec-1987
Date of most recent amendment:: 27-Oct-2009
List Entry Name:: WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION
Statutory Address 1:: WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION, 4, GREYCOAT PLACE

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: WESTMINSTER FIRE STATION, 4, GREYCOAT PLACE

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Greater London Authority
District:: City of Westminster (London Borough)
Parish:: Non Civil Parish
National Grid Reference:: TQ 29613 79158

Details

1900/100/21 GREYCOAT PLACE 01-DEC-87 4 Westminster Fire Station (Formerly listed as: GREYCOAT PLACE SW1 4 FIRE STATION)

II Fire station and flats. 1906. Built by the Fire Brigade Branch of the London County Council Architects Department. Extension to NE with drill tower added late C20.

MATERIALS: Red brick with fine rubbed, moulded and gauged brick detail; Portland stone ground floor and dressings. Rear elevation in yellow stock brick.

PLAN: Footprint is almost a parallelogram with acute return to W. Ground and first-floor fire station with flats above. 4 storeys plus basement and attic. Pedestrian entrance and stair located at front between the two easternmost appliance bays.

EXTERIOR: Free English Baroque style. Asymmetrical façade comprising (from W-E) 4 and 3 equal bays flanking a broader, off-centre stone-banded bay which is slightly set forward and aligns with the centre bay of the symmetrical 5-bay attic storey. Banded rustication to ground floor, continuing around W return. 3 appliance bays under voussoired and keyed lintels, with off-centre pedestrian entrance to upper floors. Above this, the bays are articulated by giant order of Ionic pilasters with dosserets, terminated by broad stone-banded angle pilasters (that to W return has small first-floor window). Windows are tripartite, coupled or single 8-over-8 timber sashes. First-floor windows set in recessed segmental arches, apart from that to W bay and keyed oculus 2 bays along. Broader off-centre bay has 6-over-6 pane stair windows at mezzanine-level and sub-cornice; keyed oculus to attic. Brick cornice over 3rd floor and stone coped parapet to the attic storey. Irregular roof plan with hipped central part and pitched roofs to W end. Tall stacks with dentilled cornices.

Return to W has 2-storey canted projection with broad voussoired arched window and 2 narrow sash windows above; above this the flank has one window and tall stack to left, surmounted by half gable in form of pediment with modillion cornice; chimneystack has drip mould in form of round pediment. Elevation is then canted round to meet the rear. Rear elevation has continuous railed balconies; windows are segmental-headed triple casements or paired 6-over-9 pane sashes.

The modern brick drill tower and extension to NE are not of special interest. INTERIOR: Appliance room ceiling carried on steel girders supported on stanchions. Glazed brick walls. Original watch room to rear has glazed brick walls and canted front with square timber panelling. Glazed brick facing to stair well and pole houses. Upper floors (partly inspected) are much altered and therefore of lesser interest.

HISTORY: Fire services in London emerged principally from the need for insurance providers to limit their losses through damage to property in the period after the Great Fire of 1666. Initially, each insurer maintained a separate brigade that only served subscribers until the foundation of an integrated service in 1833, funded by City businesses. In 1866, following an Act of Parliament of the previous year, the first publicly-funded authority charged with saving lives and protecting buildings from fire was founded: the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, initially part of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The earliest MFB fire stations were generally plain brick and few pre-1880 examples survive. In 1880s under the MFB architect Robert Pearsall, fire stations acquired a true architectural identity, most notably in the rich Gothic style typical of Victorian municipal buildings such as Bishopsgate. It was the building boom of the 1890s-1900s however that was to transform fire station architecture and give the Brigade some of its most characterful buildings. In 1889, the fire brigade passed to the newly-formed London County Council, and from 1896 new stations were designed by a group of architects led by Owen Fleming and Charles Canning Winmill, both formerly of the LCC Housing Department, who brought the highly-experimental methods which had evolved for designing new social housing to the Fire Brigade Division (as the department was called from 1899), and drew on a huge variety of influences to create unique and commanding stations, each built to a bespoke design and plan. This exciting period in fire station design continued to the outbreak of WWI, although there was some standardisation of design in the period.

Westminster Fire Station replaced an earlier MFB building of c1876 in Francis Street (demolished).

SOURCES: The New Westminster Fire Station, Fire and Water (July 1906) John B Nadal, London's Fire Stations (2006)

REASON FOR DESIGNATION: Westminster Fire Station is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It belongs to a remarkable series of fire stations built by the LCC between 1896-1914, each executed to a bespoke design, which are widely admired as being among the most accomplished examples of LCC civic architecture of this rich and prolific period; * Special architectural interest as a handsome and skilful interpretation of the c1700 English Baroque style. It exhibits the quality of materials and detailing which are the hallmarks of LCC design, and is externally virtually intact, with most of its original windows; * The original watch room, now a rare survival.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:: 209944
Legacy System:: LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Nadal, J, Londons Fire Stations, (2006)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.