Ruskin Works, Oakridge Road - Buckinghamshire's Local Heritage List

Location/Address

None recorded

Type

Building

Roofed and walled permanent structures.

Description

Former furniture factory, 1920s Three storey red brick factory with new corrugated metal roof. Formerly the chair-making factory of H.J Castle and Abbott but as at 2004 used as an oil distribution centre . Also single storey building now used by Seaward Doors. Map plot around centre of site. For sources, photographs and report see B1. Added to local list (B2). Ground floor has been sub-divided into 15 rooms. The original building significantly altered to provide access to the new extension, most notably the removal of the NW wall and part of the rear wall. NW Extension and the Original Building: NW end of the original building has been largely removed, exept for 2 brick columns. Junction of the old and new buildings clearly seen by difference in thickness and finish. A modern suspended ceilling has been inserted. Room 3 is 6 bays long with a cupboard the width of one bay. It sits on a concrete plinth and contains a single window. SW wall has a blocked up window and door. The rear room is open to Room 2 with the exception of 4 surviving brick pillars to support the ceiling/first floor beams. Within the south corner are a pair of double doors that have been blocked up (B3). Rear Extension: Single room wide and sub-divided into 4 rooms. Approximatley half the length of the building. Concrete floor and whitewashed brick walls. A blocked doorway was present at the SE end of the room. Roof trusses rested on the pillars left from the former back wall and reinforced with buttresses within the new back wall (B3). South-East Extension: 5 rooms, central corridor, and stairs to the first floor. Ceiling is made of concrete joists, painted white and appear to partially supported by via a pair of steel columns. Within the room are 4 windows and 2 blocked up wondows on the southern wall; externally the windows are still present. Central room contains 3 windows blocked internally with glass left extrnally. Further blocked windows in the NE wall. First floor is a single roomdivided into 10 bays, including an angled double bay. The external wall of each bay containing a window. The wall, formerly an internal wall contains a blocked doorway, with a second blocked doorway in the northern wall. Second Floor: Sub-divided into 5 rooms, split between the original building and the south-eastern extension (B3). Watching brief for utility services identified no archaeological features or deposits. Although the trenches for the service runs were not deep enough to reveal natural geology (B4). Now converted to housing