Enterprise House
ENTERPRISE HOUSE, BLYTH ROAD
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1244861
- Date first listed:
- 31-Oct-1997
- List Entry Name:
- Enterprise House
- Statutory Address:
- ENTERPRISE HOUSE, BLYTH ROAD
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2001-12-01
- Reference:
- IOE01/06214/20
- Rights:
- © Mr Adam Watson. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II
- List Entry Number:
- 1244861
- Date first listed:
- 31-Oct-1997
- List Entry Name:
- Enterprise House
- Statutory Address 1:
- ENTERPRISE HOUSE, BLYTH ROAD
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- ENTERPRISE HOUSE, BLYTH ROAD
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Greater London Authority
- District:
- Hillingdon (London Borough)
- Parish:
- Non Civil Parish
- National Grid Reference:
- TQ0935479607
Details
TQ 07 NE
804/2/10040
HAYES
BLYTH ROAD Enterprise House
II
Former gramophone factory for His Master's Voice, now warehousing and industrial units. 1912 by the Trussed Concrete Steel Company, E Owen Williams senior designer. Reinforced concrete frame, with posts and beams using the Kahn system of reinforcement patented in 1903 by Albert and Julius Kahn in Detroit, USA, and painted brick infill. The building is unusual for its date not only in its system of construction but that this is expressed externally. Flat roof, with north-facing rooflights to rear. Irregular E-shaped plan, with offset centre denoted by rooftop water tank, its wings projecting to rear. Street facade is 1-10-3-5 bay composition, with offset three-bay centre containing staircase set round central liftshaft and topped by watertank - itself supported on a
concrete frame treated as a tripartite arch to the streetfront. Small pane metal windows with central opening casements. Iron railing to roof. Sides and rear similar, but east side and rear with projecting frame indicating that the building was intended to be extended. The treatment of the reinforcement bars at the top of the columns as a form of capital is distinctive in concrete
construction of this period and is also found internally.
Sir E Owen Williams is the most significant engineer turned architect in twentieth-century British architecture, noted for his work for the Boots Pure Drug Company, the Daily Express and British Overseas Airways Corporation. This is his first known work. It is significant in its own right as an early reinforced concrete building which is unusual for its date in that the frame clearly expressed as a composition rather than hidden behind brick or render. This and the rooftop watertank, a curious architectural feature, has led to the building becoming known as 'Little Chicago'.
Sources: The Builder, 29 March 1912, pp 375-7; Peter Collins, 'Concrete, the Vision of a New Architecture', 1959; David Cottam and Gavin Stamp, 'Sir E Owen Williams', 1986; Andrew Saint, 'Some Thoughts About the Architectural Use of Concrete', AA Files 21, 1991.
Listing NGR: TQ0935479607
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 468926
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
D, Cottam, G, Stamp, Sir Owen Williams 1890-1969 (1986),
Collins, P, Concrete the Vision of a New Architecture (1959),
The Builder in 29 March, ,Vol. , (1912), 375-7
Saint, A, Architectural Association Files in Some Thoughts About the Architectural Use of Concrete, ,Vol. , (1991),
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 14-Dec-2025 at 00:40:06.
Download a full scale map (PDF)© Crown copyright [and database rights] 2025. OS AC0000815036. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100024900.© British Crown and SeaZone Solutions Limited 2025. All rights reserved. Licence number 102006.006.
End of official list entry