Old Building on King Street

[Guest]

Hi

I'm an architecture student from Leyland and have tasked myself with finding a 'small' project in my home town. I have always known about the ex boiler building on King Street and have only recently realised how perfect of a project it would make - great surrounding views, prominent town centre location etc.

I have been looking for information on this building and came across an image in Leyland Societies publication 'Tourque - No. 41 - Autumn 2008'. Which gave me this picture:



Now I know it isn't your picture but with it being part of the history of Leyland (and Leyland Motors) I was hoping you might be able to tell me a little bit more about the building. When it was built. Who the architect was. When it was closed. Who currently owns it. Any information is helpful really. If you know of any other pictures of the building it might also help me greatly!

For your information, my project would plan to turn the building into a home and make the most use of the space. It would utilise new architectural styles and return the building into a useful structure and not just a relic of the past.

Thank you in advance for any help you can be!

Ross

[germinal]

Totally baffled by this I'm afraid.

I hope somebody can help you.

[anacortesdamp]

Ross:

It's many years since I left Leyland (1965 to the Midlands, then 1968 to the US). The photo seems to be looking North, since the Congregational Church and the terraced houses on Quin Street are visible. I remember that the street south of Hough Lane was walled off, as the picture shows. I don't remember the street name, but the block of Hough Lane to the east included what was Bolan's on the corner (later a furniture store and maybe now an Iceland) the block the other side has smaller stores (including Granada TV Rental) as far as Thurston Road

Although our hardware store was on Towngate, just south of the junction with King Street, I don't recognise the building. Until sometime in the late 1960s, King Street dead-ended at Thurston Road, where Leyland Motors factory buildings started. It didn't go through to Turpin Green like it does now. The change was part of the re-work of Turpin Green to be the primary route to the M6 which resulted in Balcarres Road being dead-ended.

From the eyepoint of the photographer, the photo must have been taken somewhere in the LML factory since he's looking down at quite an angle, suggesting maybe a 4-story building. That Shell fuel tanker looks like it's on a Leyland Octopus 4-axle chassis dating to the mid 1950's.

Since the place where the tanker is would have been within the LML campus, the building is probably part of the factory. With the big chimney right behind it, it's most likely a boiler house for process steam or maybe even an engine house for an stationary steam engine driving factry machinery.

With luck, some mid-50's LML employee will see the photo and recognise it. You might try contacting the leyland Historical Societry also.

Good luck.


Frank Damp
Anacortes, WA, USA

[frank h]

The church in the picture is the Congregational church on Hough Lane, the street is Meadow St. The building or tower is still there but not the chimney. It is accsessed from King St and is used as business premises by Bill Whyte Floor coverings. You can see it on Google maps street view.

frank h.

[Peter Harris]

I think the shape of the building is interesting as to what was at the time, or originally in there. If you can see the rivetted tank and ducting, that seems to be an economiser, set up to reclaim heat from the flue gases by warming up the feedwater and/or combustion air. If it is an economiser, then the chimney was probably not used at the time, that kind of chimney was used for single or dual tube coal fired grate combustion, using Lancashire boilers. There were many around Leyland originally coal fired and many converted to run on various oils (very inefficiently but suitable due to the luminous flame) until up to the the early 80's when gas firing became popular and the firing intensities caused the design to overload and these types of boilers were replaced with ones designed to fire gas. The portion of the building with the apex roof probably held some portion of the boiler process such as a water tank or a hopper for coal but there doesn't seem to be any evidence of there ever having been a conveyor to get the coal up there, so I favour either a water tank or an elevated boiler that was at some time replaced, that rules out a Lancashire boiler because of the elevation and the size of the building, but coal fired due to the size of the chimney, so probably a Cornish or Cochrane boiler oil fired. Its a shame the oil storage can't be seen. Looking at the photo again the apex of the structure appears congruent with the apex of the adjoining factory roof so it is likely the archiect of the factory was the architect of the boiler house. I never worked on a boiler in that location and I don't think the gas mains around there were too large either to be in a position to feed enough gas into the boiler in the 70's or 80's. So I would say by that time it had probably been taken out. Many factories back then used steam for heating via "thermoliers" which were heat exchangers with fans that condensed steam and blew warm air into the factory space. The ROF had about the biggest system around the leyland area using this technology. All very old hat now but effective ad reliable in it's day.
Hope my trip down memory lane has been of some use


Regards

Peter

[devonman]

The building was probably designed/built/maintained by the Leyland Construction Company, a firm which shared several directors with Leyland Motors and I think was set up purely to build and maintain their plant. The company used to have its HQ in Wellfield House at the junction of School Lane and Hough Lane next to where the supermaket now stands. Its chairman was Sir Thomas Hargreaves, who lived in a long-since demolished house in Church Road, and after whom Hargreaves Avenue (off Canberra Road) was named