Description

In the entry for:

TQ 3265 DINGWALL AVENUE
(south side)

Electricity Showrooms
1005-/9/10023 and Offices

II

The description shall be amended to read 'See under: Electricity Showrooms and Offices
WELLESLEY ROAD'.

------------------------------------
In the entry for:

TQ 3265 WELLESLEY STREET
(west side)

Electricity Showrooms
1005-/9/10023
II

The address shall be amended to read 'WELLESLEY ROAD (west side) - Electricity Showrooms
and Offices' and the references to Wellesley Street in lines 10 and 13 of the description shall be
amended to Wellesley Road.

------------------------------------

The following building shall be added to the list:-

CROYDON
TQ 32 65 WELLESLEY STREET
(West side)

1005- /9/10023 Electricity Showrooms

II

Includes: Electricity Showrooms and Offices DINGWALL AVENUE. Electricity
showrooms and offices. 1939-42 by Robert Atkinson for the County Borough of Croydon.
Framed building clad in Portland stone and contrasting marbles, flat roof not seen.
Concave centrepiece on prominent corner site, with eight-bay frontage to Wellesley Road
and six-bay return to Dingwall Avenue that includes carriage entrance to circular
courtyard within. Four storeys and attic. Central concave facade four windows wide, set
between projecting ribs and with early signage in high, blind parapet. Bronze double
doors set back in heavily moulded black marble surround, reached up steps and set under
curved canopy with round lights inset into soffit mouldings that continues the length of
Wellesley Street facade. The other elevations have square, bronze windows with margin
lights set without any mouldings in moderne facade treated as a grid of vertical and
horizontal bands, expressive of the frame within. Broader projecting bays at either end,
with to south a set-back concave staircase bay. Ground-floor to Wellesley Street clad in
pale cream marble, with big bronze showroom windows between faceted moulded piers of
large dimension, set on granite plinth and inscribed 'COUNTY BOROUGH OF
CROYDON ELECTRICITY DEPARTMENT'. The upper floors of the Dingwall Avenue
facade identical in style; on the ground floor the contrasting dark granite band continues
as a formal outline to carriage entrance. This leads through to courtyard, designed to
serve a cookery demonstration hall that was never built. Circular ground-floor treated as
an infilled loggia with Portland stone columns under cyma-moulded cornice and blind
parapet, with bronze tripartite glazing. Crowning the capitals on top of the columns are a
sequence of carved square urns, dedicated to 'fire', 'air', 'earth', 'water', 'time',
'energy', 'flight', 'Elysium', and 'Hesperides'. Stone steps and balustrades to sides.
The interior of the building has been remodelled.
Source
Paul Spencer-Longhurst, Robert Atkinson, Architectural Association, 1989.

Listing NGR: TQ3248665682

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q27082879

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

• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Renovating Old Houses: Bringing New Life to Vintage Homes (For Pros By Pros)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings