Greater London House

This is intended as an exercise in “stream of consciousness” and description. The location is real, but I am not going to “let the facts get in the way of a good story”. Don’t take it seriously!

When I worked for Foster Wheeler Power Products, they were based in Greater London House, opposite Mornington Crescent tube station.

The building is distinctive and famous. It used to be the Carreras Cigarette factory before it was converted to offices. When I was there it was painted a cream colour and had lost some of its decoration. It has subsequently been restored to something like its original glory. It really is a spectacular building. An art-deco Egyptian temple in the middle of London!

The building takes up a full block. It’s a slightly irregular shape to fit the site. The main building stands on pillars and it has a car park underneath. Viewed from above it is a “ladder” or extended figure of eight to allow for light wells through the building. Foster Wheeler’s offices were on the second floor. Power Products has since been absorbed into Foster Wheeler Energy (or sold to Rolls Royce) and moved to Reading.

When I was there I remember the office had a suspended hardwood floor which was taken up to install some specialist equipment. The windows were original Crittall steel. One unusual aspect was that the goods lift in the North-West corner of the building had a set of doors which served the outside world, and another set of door opposite which led into the building and the man who acted as the security guard and goods inwards controller had a desk in the lift which he rode up and down all day! Maybe it wasn’t that unusual, because the tube station at Mornington Crescent has a similar arrangement where the ticket offices are in the lifts. If you wanted to buy a ticket (everyone I knew, including me, had a season ticket) you bought it in the lift. I tended to use the stairs from the platform level, even though they were really only intended as an escape route. They wound their way around a circular shaft.

 (31st December 2016 – 328 words)