William Gaitskell House is a Grade II listed Regency era town house dating from 1814. Subsequently extended and used as a Police Station from 1836-1965, and from then on as offices, the house is one of the few structures within the neighbourhood to survive the blitz of the Second World War. The scale and setting of the new extended elements are sympathetic to the original building, the aim being to create a subservient yet confident relationship between the old and new structures. Internally, the rundown and dated office accommodation has been rationalised, restored, and refurbished to create new apartments.

The house’s original interior partitions and features had been removed during the 1970’s. Burwell Architects re-introduced the historic room hierarchies, with free standing kitchens sitting within the new historic setting, and discretely integrating modern services into the new fabric. A new external staircase provides access to the apartments located within the police station annex.

The new facades utilise a combination of dark brickwork together with yellow/gold aluminium to create a framing system to provide an underlying order to the composition. The dark brick was chosen to allow continuity of texture and material within the context of a confident, contemporary composition.