Images from Building Recording at Cable House (Mercury House), Buckingham Road, Bletchley, Milton Keynes June 2021
Border Archaeology, 2022. https://doi.org/10.5284/1095478. How to cite using this DOI
Data copyright © Border Archaeology unless otherwise stated
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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Resource identifiers
- ADS Collection: 4744
- DOI:https://doi.org/10.5284/1095478
- How to cite using this DOI
Introduction
This collection comprises images from building recording at Cable House undertaken by Border Archaeology between the 14th and 30th of June 2021.
Border Archaeology undertook a programme of Archaeological Standing Building Recording to Historic England/RCHME Photographic Survey level, with regard to proposed alterations to Cable House (Mercury House), Buckingham Road, Bletchley Milton Keynes MK3 5LD.
Cable House is a five-storey office building constructed in 1973-74. It has been highlighted as being of architectural significance a notable example of a mid-1970s office building in the Milton Keynes area, co-designed by David Harbord and Derek Walker. It is not designated as a listed building but is considered by Milton Keynes Council to be a non-designated heritage asset.
A full photographic record was made of the exterior, ground floor and first floor. Much of the internal cladding and carpeting, floor surfaces, suspended ceilings, and some temporary partition walls have been removed. The programme of Archaeological Standing Building Recording undertaken by Border Archaeology has reached the following conclusions briefly detailed below.
Cable House is a noteworthy example of a substantial mid-1970s office building in the Milton Keynes area, co-designed by David Harbord and Derek Walker, Chief Architect to the Milton Keynes Development Corporation who played a key role in the layout of Central Milton Keynes during the late 20th century and was responsible for designing most of its major buildings during this period. The design of the building clearly acknowledges the influence of the pioneering American Modernist architect Mies van der Rohe (1886-1969). Whilst the ancillary buildings and much of the original soft landscaping highlighted in Pevsner (1994) have not survived, the main building facades remain distinctly unchanged, with their curtain-wall glazing defined by vertical mullions (extending from first floor to the roof) and horizontal opaque banding marking the divisions between each floor. At ground floor level is a colonnade punctuated by square columns with aluminium cladding.
The ground floor retains much of the original layout as detailed in the building description contained in an article in the RIBA Journal dated September 1977 (written shortly after its completion), consisting of two cores at the east and west ends of the building (containing staircases, lifts, lavatories and storerooms) flanking a large central plan area which accommodated a computer room and offices.
The first floor (originally used as a training school) was broadly representative of the upper floors and defined by an open plan layout within the central part of the floor flanked by core compartments at either end; most of the internal fixtures and fittings have been removed although glazed and plasterboard partitions have survived and were recorded during the survey.
