Building record WBG 117 - Former Police Station, Grundisburgh Road

The former police station in Woodbridge was built in the early 1930s. The building's red-brick southern facade has survived almost unaltered and represents an imposing piece of architecture in the Arts and Crafts style with a full array of Crittall windows and a canted central porch embellished in stone. A detached police house to the east is an addition of the early 1960s. The interior initially consisted largely of residential accommodation for police officers and cadets, with the latter housed in cubicles divided by screens on the first floor. A mess and recreation room lay to the right of the entrance with a kitchen immediately to the rear, and the recreation room lay to the right of the entrance with a kitchen immediately to the rear, and the left-hand section was a self-contained Inspector's flat. The charge room and two cells in the eastern rear wing of the U-shaped structure have remained unaltered, but the rest of the building now consists of anonymous offices with whiteboards and computer stations. Both rear wings were shorter originally, with hipped corner gables and single-storied projection, but the latter were subsequently provided with upper storeys to increase accommodation. The hipped former rear gables can still be seen. A juvenile detention cell was added to the west of the charge room in 1966 and the steel cell doors replaced in 1983. The layout of the police house is typical of contemporary domestic houses but it too has been converted into offices. Apart from its fine, uniform array of Crittall windows the only principal internal features to survive from the 1930s are the staircases at both ends of the building. The eastern stair was for lower ranks and is utilitarian, but its western counterpart boats a moulded wooden hand rail with distinctive finials that resemble policeman's helmets (S1).