Mines Rescue Station conservation area

Designation date 1994
Area 2.0 hectares (4.94 acres)
Listed building entries 1

Background information

The Mines Rescue Station conservation area lies to the south of the East Lancashire Road on the west side of Ellenbrook Road in Boothstown. A map showing the boundary of the conservation area is available to download at the bottom of the page. The conservation area is centred around the grade II listed Mines Rescue Station. The building was listed on 21 January 1994 when, as a result of being decommissioned by the owners, there was a threat of demolition to release land for redevelopment.

The Mines Rescue Station was built in 1932 to 1933 and was designed by Bradshawe, Gass and Hope of Bolton for the Lancashire and Cheshire Coal owners. The building consists of a two storey section fronting on to Ellenbrook Road reducing to single storey at the rear. The front section contained a vehicle garage, kitchen, shower rooms, laboratory, oxygen and equipment storage areas on the ground floor and offices, board room together with an aviary (in which canaries were bred) on the first floor. The single storey rear section contained training galleries with observation halls. Minor additions to the rear of the building were made at a later stage primarily for vehicle garaging.

The training galleries and observation halls

There were two u-shaped training galleries immediately behind the garage. Each gallery had its own observation hall, and was laid out to represent underground workings of a colliery. Emergency doors were fitted with inside panic bolts to allow ready egress to fresh air in case of need. The upper portion of each door was finished with a glazed inspection window so that the work being carried out by the men in the galleries could be observed from the hall. Each gallery and observation hall formed one unit, but they were so planned that they could be used separately as well as together according to the practice.

One of the galleries was provided with a special heating device so that a practice could take place in a hot and irrespirable atmosphere. The galleries were each fitted with a fan, by means of which the smoke and fumes used to create the irrespirable atmosphere in the gallery could be brought through ducts from the special stove in the basement. At completion of the practice the fumes and smoke would be drawn through exhaust ducts into a high chimney adjoining the galleries and so discharged to the atmosphere.

The station was built with a resident superintendent's house, two semi-detached houses for instructors, and six pairs of semi-detached houses to accommodate the two permanent rescue corps of twelve men maintained at the station. The site also included underground air raid shelters, a tennis court, an allotment garden section, a strip of land for parking of vehicles, a children's play ground and an area of open space for recreation.

Article 4 Direction

In an attempt to safeguard the frontages of the original 1930s houses a direction under Article 4 of the General Development Order 1988 was made on 13 October 1994. This is the only one of Salford's sixteen conservation areas to benefit from such a direction. The direction applies to land comprised of the front elevations of numbers 1 to 15 Orchard Avenue and the front and side elevations of numbers 308, 310 and 320 Ellenbrook Road. The map at the bottom of the page identifies these properties. The effect of such a direction further removes permitted development rights for these properties and as such planning permission is required for the following works:

  1. alterations comprising replacement window frames and rainwater goods
  2. any alteration to the roof
  3. the erection or construction of a porch outside the external door
  4. the provision within the garden of a hard-standing
  5. the erection, construction, maintenance, improvement or alteration of a gate, fence, wall or other means of enclosure
  6. the formation, laying out and construction of a means of vehicular access to Orchard Avenue or Ellenbrook Road

Update

Since the designation of the Mines Rescue conservation area, the land that was once occupied by the allotments, open space, children's playground and underground air raid shelters has been developed for housing as an extension of the original dwellings built for the rescue corps. The design of the new detached houses reflects that of the original 1930s housing.

The Mines Rescue Station was converted to a hat manufacturing business with a flat at first floor level shortly after the designation of the Mines Rescue Station Conservation Area. Following the closure of that business it was converted to light industrial usage with an additional flat on the first floor. All of the conversions were carried out discreetly with the minimum effect on the unique character of the original building and the conservation area in which it is located.

Listed building entries within the conservation area Grade
Boothstown Lancashire Mines Rescue Station, Ellenbrook Road II

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This page was last updated on 7 April 2016

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