I had been reading about the controversy of Bath’s fire station being demolished, so I felt the need to go and have a little look as I was in God’s own city and I like to find controversial things I can have an opinion on that no-one else will be interested in.
I think it’s fair to say that it’s probably too late to reverse the decision now. The Twentieth Century Society opposed demolition and argued for its heritage value, while the fire service argued that the building no longer met modern operational needs as the doors weren’t big enough or something.
Bath Fire Station is on Bathwick Street and Cleveland Bridge and was built between 1938 and 1939, with design work begun by Alfred John Taylor and completed by his daughter Gertrude Molly Justice Taylor, later Molly Gerrard. I think that’s interesting as female architects were hardly being overwhelmed with public commissions in the late 1930s. Avon Fire & Rescue Service closed the station in February 2026, moved crews temporarily to Roseberry Place/Lower Bristol Road and says the rebuilt station is expected to open in summer 2027.
I do naturally veer towards the side of heritage, but Bath does have quite a lot of architectural history so that softens the blow a little, although it’s a shame to lose some interesting twentieth century architecture. And this is a working building, so the priority has to be about firefighters having a structure that’s actually useful for them. It was nice to see the building before it was entirely demolished though and I’m sure that there was some sort of consultation process to make people feel a bit better about the whole arrangement. On which point, I must do an update on the Sheringham bus shelter debacle at some point.