police station:

police station or stationhouse is a building which serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff. These buildings often contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms.

in Great Britain used to be organised on village lines.[citation needed] Most villages of any size (and even many small villages and hamlets) had a police station, often called a "police house", which was staffed by a single constable, who lived there with his family.[citation needed] The constable could be called out by the locals at any time of the day or night and during the day also patrolled the village and surrounding area on a bicycle.

These local police stations were grouped together into sections under a sergeant, whose station was known as a "sergeant's station". This was usually a larger station in a large village or small town (one such example being Leyland police station, staffed by one or more constables as well as the sergeant; although in very rural areas it may have been just another single-officer police house. Larger towns in the county constabulary areas had police stations staffed by a number of officers, often under the command of an inspector or superintendent, usually also commanding a sub-division or division respectively, and therefore giving the names of "sub-divisional station" or "divisional station" to their stations.