Lothian Regional Transport Office, 3 Murrayburn Road, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Edinburgh

Description

This bus depot office and canteen building was designed by T Bowhill Gibson and Laing in 1949 and built in 1955. It has been altered in the later 20th century and in 2015. It is a single and two-storey, flat roofed, square-plan building in the Art Deco style with a four-storey tower at the former entrance on Murrayburn Road. The first floor is smaller than the ground floor and was built as an L-plan to the street elevations only. The two-storey street elevations differ in height. There is a later infill addition at the rear of the upper floor for a plant room.

In accordance with Section 1 (4A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) (Scotland) Act 1997 the following are excluded from the listing: the interior of the building as well as the pitched roofed garages and workshops to the south and west.

The building has smooth white render with painted concrete cills and margins. The former main entrance door in the north elevation was blocked with glass bricks around 1980. In 2015 two windows to the east elevation were changed to fire escape doors.

The building has flat roofs with parapets at the wall heads. The metal framed windows were replaced in 2015 in Crittal double glazing with a lying pane glazing pattern similar to the original. The clock and logo on the tower are early 21st century additions.

Statement of Interest

Statement of Special Interest:

This bus depot office is amongst a relatively small number of purpose-built bus depots in Scotland of which not many now survive. It was built as part of the new phase of expanding motor transport, when by 1950, trams had become redundant. It is a good example of the Art Deco style and is a distinctive industrial building in this post-war suburb of Edinburgh. The building remains in use as offices for a bus depot and the exterior is largely unaltered.

Age and Rarity

This bus depot office building was built in 1955 with the associated bus garages completed the following year. The 1939 Bartholomew Post Office Plan of Edinburgh and Leith shows the site of the bus depot in use as a brickworks. An aerial photograph of the site taken in 1946 also shows the brickworks with the extensive Hailes Quarry that served it, immediately to the south. The brickworks are believed to have closed shortly after. On the 15 March 1947 The Scotsman advertised the Hailes Quarry site as a "2 day sale of a modern public works depot".

In the 1940s Longstone Road was known as Drumbrydon Road. The Dictionary of Scottish Architects notes that in 1949 the firm of T. Bowhill Gibson and Laing designed a canteen and offices for the 'Drumbrydon Works'. The scheme was accepted and a building warrant granted that same year. However the depot was not completed until 1955, opening on 23 October, with the bus garage building completed in 1956. Building restrictions brought in because of the Second World War were not lifted until 1953 and it is likely that this caused the delay.

Motor buses were introduced to Edinburgh's municipal transport fleet in 1919. The buses provided a service from new housing estates into the tram network which covered the city centre. From this year Edinburgh's trams and buses were operated by the Edinburgh Corporation Tramway Department, becoming known as the Edinburgh Corporation Transport Department in 1928 as the bus fleet increased.

After the Second World War tram networks in cities across the United Kingdom were in decline because of the competition from the motor bus. Motor buses were seen to be cheaper to run, easier to maintain, caused less congestion and hazards in busy city centres and could serve new routes.

In 1950 a report recommending that 25% of the Edinburgh tram network was replaced by buses was approved. On 25 September 1952 the Council approved a recommendation to scrap the tram system within 3 years. The last tram ran on the 16 November 1956.

In 1950 Edinburgh had five tram depots and bus depots: Shrubhill, Annandale Street, Leith, Tollcross, Portobello and Gorgie. All were built as tram depots except that in Annandale Street which was built in 1922 as an industrial exhibition centre (see separate listing, LB28251). It was acquired by the Corporation in 1926 and remains in use as a bus depot.

The expanding bus fleet required more accommodation for their repair, maintenance and storage. A former tram depot on Westfield Street in Gorgie had been the main bus depot in the west of Edinburgh. The restricted site, however, meant that this depot could not be expanded to accommodate the growing bus fleet. The Drumbrydon Road site was acquired for a new bus depot in the west of the city.

The former tram and bus depot in Gorgie depot was sold in 1957, two years after the Longstone depot was opened. It has been largely demolished along with the former tram depots at Tollcross and Portobello. The depots at Shrubhill and Leith are no longer in use as such.

Purpose-built bus depots of the mid-20 century and earlier are relatively rare, and those with a distinctive office section are even more unusual. The Longstone Depot was the first built by the Edinburgh Corporation. It was followed in 1962 by the Marine Depot on Seafield Road East, which replaced that in Portobello. Eastern Scottish built a head office and bus depot on New Street in 1928. This depot has now been demolished.

While it has been altered to its interior, the Longstone bus depot office building is a good survival of a relatively rare building type. It retains its distinctive Art Deco design which, although first popularised in the 1930s, was still typical of transportation buildings of this date.

Architectural or Historic Interest

Interior

The interior of the building was altered as part of a major refurbishment scheme in 2015. It is excluded from the listing.

Plan form

The former office building was designed as a single storey square plan ground floor, with the first floor to the street sides only. This difference in the plan form between the two floors purposefully made the building appear larger than it was and more prominent to the street elevations. It was an integral design element to emphasise the horizontality of the Art Deco style of the building. Each floors appears as horizontal rectangles framed by their coloured margins. This adds interest to the plan form of the building as a whole.

The first floor was later extended at the rear with a plant room. This change to the upper floor plan is keeping with the horizontal design of the original building by a flat roof.

Technological excellence or innovation, material or design quality

The design uses typical Art Deco detailing such as smooth white render with linear features accentuated by a contrasting colour. The horizontality of the ground and first floors is highlighted by base, cill, lintel and parapet courses as well as the lying pane glazing pattern and the corner windows.

The verticality of the former entrance tower is highlighted by band margins at its stepped corners and around the tall recessed glass brick window over the former front door. The vertical elements of the 2-storey, four-bay section to the right of the tower are plain pilasters between the windows.

The exterior has been slightly altered by the change to the glazing and the former entrance change to a window.

In the 1930s the Art Deco style, with its smooth white render, curved corners and streamlined styling, was very appropriate for buildings associated with new and modern transport, like the motor car, aeroplanes or ocean liners. Typically the style would be applied on the front facing part of a building with the more utilitarian garage behind. It was a popular style applied equally to sporting and leisure buildings such as cinemas, lidos and ice rinks.

By the 1950s this style had become somewhat outdated, as shown by contemporary examples in England. The Yellow Bus Garage in Bournemouth designed in 1950 to 51 by Jackson and Greenen and the Stockwell Bus Garage of 1951 to 44 by Adie, button and Partners both use reinforced concrete shell construction to create a large uninterrupted space.

Longstone bus depot office building is a late flowering of the Art Deco design but it remains a good example of this style, which was deliberately chosen for a transport building. It demonstrates the aspiration of the Edinburgh Corporation in a new age of motor transport.

The architect Thomas Bowhill Gibson (1895–1949) attended Edinburgh College of Art. After war service he began his own practice in 1922 and in the following year he took temporary work in Alex Allan Foote's office. By 1939 he was admitted to ARIBA and had entered into partnership with James William Laing as T Bowhill Gibson and Laing.

Gibson is known for his interest in modern architecture and the Art deco style as shown by his cinema and theatre design in Edinburgh. His best known work is the 1937 Dominion Cinema in Edinburgh (see separate listing, LB27650) and the 1938 former George cinema in Portobello (see separate listing, LB26818). Gibson died on 27 September 1949, the same year as the design for the bus depot was submitted for building warrant. It is likely this bus depot was his final work.

Gibson carried out some domestic commissions in his career. One of the largest was the 1935 Learmonth House and Court apartment complex which covers a full street block in the west end of Edinburgh. This building has an integral underground garage with curved details and is similarly render with horizontal margins to his bus depot design.

Setting

The site for the bus depot was chosen in 1949 on a main road junction to act as a transport hub for the west of Edinburgh. The office and canteen building was built first on the north corner of this large site and marks its entrance. The prominent tower is a design feature that increases the buildings prominence in the streetscape as well as to act as a visual pivot to the road junction on which it sits.

The suburb of Longstone developed after the Second World War and is predominantly made up of post-war housing in flats and semi-detached villas. There are only a few non-domestic buildings in the area. These include a primary school, a church and the bus depot, all of which built around the same time.

The setting of the bus depot office building adds to its interest. The building is now adjacent to a busy roundabout and is a distinctive industrial building in an area of Edinburgh dominated by post-war housing.

Regional variations

There are no known regional variations.

Close Historical Associations

There are no known associations with a person or event of national importance at present (2017).

External Links

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