B Division Police and Fire Station: Goulden Street New Cross

The tender of Messrs R Neill and Sons for the new police station in Goulden Street, Ancoats, Manchester, has been accepted by the Watch Committee. The structure will be large and compact. Provision has been made for 19 prisoners' cells, residences for police officers and firemen, and ample accommodation for the police and fire departments of the B Division. Mr Lynde, the city surveyor, by whom the plans have been prepared, has adopted all that is valuable in the present stations, adding many improvements which will make the building answer admirably the purposes for which it is intended. The light will be obtained from the roof. The cells will be ventilated by a shaft 90 feet high and warmed by heating apparatus underneath. The fire department, on the Cross Street side, will consist of an enquiry office, engine house for the accommodation of two engines, stabling, hose drying rooms, baths and residences for six firemen, etc. The building, which is to be in one block, will cover a space 0f 146 feet by 90 feet, and the four sides will face Goulden Street, Bennett Street, Cross Street and Chatterton Street. The contract was let for £10,275. [The Architect 18 June 1870 page 310]

Entering the courtyard by a wide gateway, we see on the left the open door of the fire brigade room, bright, cheery and sparkling as usual; but we turn to the right, and enter the office into which many a thousand poor wretches have been brought, trembling and shaking, or defiant as the mood might be. The room is bright with gas, and a cheerful fire is blazing merrily. A long counter runs the entire length of the room at which you stand to make inquiry, and on the other side are the usual great double desks for the clerks, a nest of pigeon holes, and the common office furniture. The few ornaments on the walls consist mainly of handcuffs, and what we suppose to be, from their size and comparatively long chains connecting them, leg irons. At one end of the general office is a wide door, in the centre of which is a small square of glass through which can be discerned a long corridor beyond. Passing through this door, a long well-lighted passage is entered, on each side of which are rows of double locked cells. The cell walls, like the walls of the corridor, are lime-washed. Every cell is fitted with a narrow plank bed and supplied with certain necessary conveniences. Beyond these there are no other items of furniture. [Walter Tomlinson Byways of Manchester Life: 1887]