Stockwell Bus Garage

Stockwell Bus Garage - A Public Transport Cathedral


I have always had a soft spot for Will Self ever since he was caught powdering his nose with Colombian snuff on the then Prime Minister’s John Major’s campaign plane in 1997. Now the writer and loyal Stockwellian has proposed Stockwell Bus Garage (designed by Adie, Button and Partners, with the engineer A. E. Beer) as his choice for London's Most Important Building. He was speaking as part of a series of Royal Academy lectures on 14th March 2011 at the Geological Society, Piccadilly. Self's appreciation of the garage as grown from passing it every day. It is, he says, "a working building, integrally connected to London’s public transport".


Will Self himself

It is certainly a good choice for this is a Titan amongst bus garages with the buses housed in cathedral like surroundings. Stockwell Garage is a large bus garage in Stockwell, London. It was designed by Adie, Button and Partners, with the engineer A E Beer, and was opened in 1952. Stockwell garage was built to replace Norwood tram depot.



It is typical of much of the concrete architecture built in the post war reconstruction period in London around the Festival of Britain. There was a steel shortage, so concrete was used to support the roof. However, the opportunity was taken to create a bravura piece of reinforced concrete design. The 393 ft long roof structure is supported by ten very shallow "two-hinged" arched ribs. Each rib is 7 ft deep at the centre of the arches, 10 ft 6 in at the end, and spans 194 ft. Cantilevered barrel vaults between, topped by large skylights, span the 42 ft between each pair of ribs. The vaults are crossed by smaller ribs to prevent torsion. Seen from the outside, the main arches are visible as outward-leaning buttresses, with a segmental curve to each bay forming a flowing roof line. The garage provides 73,350 sq ft of unobstructed parking space and could originally house 200 buses. At the time of construction it was the largest unsupported area under one roof in Europe. Since 1988 the garage has been a Grade II* listed building reflecting its importance in post-war architectural and engineering history.




So top marks to Will Self for publicising this wonderful example of inventive post-war utilitarianism. Many wonderful bus garages have bitten the dust for as part of privatisation of London’s Bus services those so clever people at HM Treasury decreed that bus garages should be sold off in another short term asset stripping drive. Clever Wallahs at the Treasury, not only have their policies messed up Britain at large and put us in hock to scores of ludicrously expensive PFI’s but their diktat on selling off garages has meant it is practically impossible to retender bus routes. As Treasury Wallahs don’t use buses they didn’t realise that they need to go asleep near to their customers at night. And bus garages are a bit like buses, BIG!

Many have already been sold off, Battersea is a spectacular apartment complex along the Thames, Victoria is a supermarket with yuppie flats over. Stockwell is a wonderful space which could be adapted to many uses in the right hands if it ceases to be a bus garage. Let us hope that Will Self’s eloquent advocacy and the Grade II* listing ensures that this magnificent space is utilised and loved for years to come.