Stockwell bus garage
Lansdowne Way, Stockwell
1951–4, Adie, Button and Partners
Listed grade II*, 29 March 1988
London’s last trams were withdrawn in 1952, leaving a demand for garages to house the expanded bus fleet. There was steel for garages to replace those destroyed in the war, but for new depots, George Adie and Frederick Button resorted to shell concrete, aided by engineer A. E. Beer.
Peckham’s bus garage, now demolished, repeated the construction popularised at the former bus depot in Bournemouth. Stockwell is also spanned by ten concrete beams linked by thin barrel vaults and a ring beam, although its span of 59.1m (194ft) makes it a third wider than the Bournemouth garage, and it is also longer. The difference is the use of arched portal frames – giant ribs that rise from 4.87m (16ft) to 16.46m (54ft) at their centre.
Between them, the arched cylindrical shells soar still higher, and the cathedral-like effect of their vaults is further enhanced by roof lights. To ensure adequate loadings, the frames’ reinforcement bars were welded rather than lapped – perhaps the roof’s greatest technical novelty. Some 200 buses can be garaged here.
This was first published in 'England's Post-War Listed Buildings' by Elain Harwood and James O. Davies. Read a review of the book and interview with Elain Harwood here.
Read other extracts from the book:
Featured articles and news
CLC and BSR process map for HRB approvals
One of the initial outputs of their weekly BSR meetings.
Building Safety Levy technical consultation response
Details of the planned levy now due in 2026.
Great British Energy install solar on school and NHS sites
200 schools and 200 NHS sites to get solar systems, as first project of the newly formed government initiative.
600 million for 60,000 more skilled construction workers
Announced by Treasury ahead of the Spring Statement.
The restoration of the novelist’s birthplace in Eastwood.
Life Critical Fire Safety External Wall System LCFS EWS
Breaking down what is meant by this now often used term.
PAC report on the Remediation of Dangerous Cladding
Recommendations on workforce, transparency, support, insurance, funding, fraud and mismanagement.
New towns, expanded settlements and housing delivery
Modular inquiry asks if new towns and expanded settlements are an effective means of delivering housing.
Building Engineering Business Survey Q1 2025
Survey shows growth remains flat as skill shortages and volatile pricing persist.
Construction contract awards remain buoyant
Infrastructure up but residential struggles.
Home builders call for suspension of Building Safety Levy
HBF with over 100 home builders write to the Chancellor.
CIOB Apprentice of the Year 2024/2025
CIOB names James Monk a quantity surveyor from Cambridge as the winner.
Warm Homes Plan and existing energy bill support policies
Breaking down what existing policies are and what they do.
Treasury responds to sector submission on Warm Homes
Trade associations call on Government to make good on manifesto pledge for the upgrading of 5 million homes.
A tour through Robotic Installation Systems for Elevators, Innovation Labs, MetaCore and PORT tech.
A dynamic brand built for impact stitched into BSRIA’s building fabric.
BS 9991:2024 and the recently published CLC advisory note
Fire safety in the design, management and use of residential buildings. Code of practice.