The Bottle Warehouse by William Hucks, 1894In 1894, the Bottle Warehouse in Jamestown Road was built by William Hucks. He was a natural engineer who submitted no estimates and built as he went along. The building was one of the first examples of ferro-concrete and, according to the legend, was reinforced with old iron bedsteads. If so, they were good ones because the building is immensely strong. Soon it housed two steam engines, the engineering shop and the carpenters' department which made crates for the enormous export trade. (In 2011 the Huck's Bottle Warehouse has been converted into flats and called Gilbey House. The original Gilbey House is now called Academic House.) In this engraving of perhaps 1920, The Stanhope Arms stands at the corner of Oval Road and Jamestown Road. In 1937, Chermeyeff will build the new Gilbey House on the site of the old Stanhope Arms. When Gilbey’s have left, in 1960, the building will stand empty. Then Gilbey House will be renamed ‘Academic House’ and the media, including Classic FM, will move in. In 1996 William Huck’s Bottle Store will be hollowed out to form a central courtyard, the building turned into the flats and called ‘Gilbey House’. The name will move along the road.
It is after 1912, when William Hucks’ bottling plant was built and before 1937, when Chermeyeff built Gilbey House
Since writing this piece I have seen ‘Gilbey's Wine and Horses’, by Jane Kidd, p. 54, Lutterworth Press, 1997, which has a photograph of the ++drawing? engraving? but no source.
Footnote |
|