NHER 53116 (Building record) - The Fire Station, Bethel Street

Fire Station of 1932-34, by Stanley G Livock.
The Station is constructed of red brick with Portland stone dressings, built on a concrete frame, with a tiled, hipped roof.
The plan comprises a three storey front range incorporating vehicular access on ground floor, with leisure rooms and crew accommodation above and staircases and pole access at each end. Family accommodation is in the three and four storey western range, at right-angles to the front block and office accommodation and entrance to the drill yard at the east elevation. Further garaging and a practice and hose drying tower are at the rear, adjoining the former Weights and Measures Office.
The façade has eight, double-height, square panelled doors framed by stone pilasters supporting an entablature with the words 'FIRE STATION' affixed.
There is a remarkable survival of original internal fixtures and fittings in all blocks with the exception of the former Weights and Measures office which was not part of the original station and does not contain any contemporary fittings apart from the staircase.
In the later 19th century, the Norwich municipal fire engine was kept beneath the Sheriff's office at the Guildhall, relocating to larger premises in Pottergate in 1899. Changing requirements prompted the need for additional facilities and the Bethel Street Fire Station was designed as a key building in the visionary new Civic Centre at the heart of the City, conceived during the 1920s. Photographic evidence of the Fire Station when it was being constructed, and after it was first opened, confirms that the building is little altered.
Information from (S1).
A. Cattermole (NLA), 11 November 2009.

21 May 2013. Planning application 13/001131/F & 13/00115/L.
Change of use of Fire Station (Class Sui Generis) to Sixth Form Free School with conversion works including external alterations and including new vertical external extension to provide new staircase and lift core and elevated corridors within proposed atrium and a new glazed infill extension beneath existing canopy. New landscaping to inner courtyard and building frontage on Bethel Street to include reinstating public footpath and providing street trees (reconsultation).
See (S2) for further details.
A.Miller-Fik (HES), 17 June 2013.