Description
Main Station Building and Booking Office (Closed). 1876. Architect: attributed to J.H.Sanders. Single storey, coursed red sandstone ashlar walls, pitched blue slated roofs fitted with pierced ridge tiles on generally common ridge lines. Stone chimney stacks with moulded stone caps. Gables on all elevations with pierced decorative timber bargeboards and lead/metal covered gable cappings. Timber panelled doors, timber casement windows with curved upper corners, stone sills, mullions and lintels, the latter shaped on underside to fit over curved corners of sash windows and doors; projecting horizontal stone drip mould over lintels. Former glazed screen at entrance to waiting room replaced with matching red sandstone ashlar walling with three sash windows. Continuous eaves boards with cast iron gutters.
West elevation to station forecourt: 3 bays, centre: projecting gable with vertical recess in upper gable with stone sill and lintel; three windows, centre 4-light sashes, left and right 2-light. To right and left of projecting gable triple windows each with 2 stone mullions; centre 4-light, outer 2-light sashes; central window to right converted to entrance door with fanlight. To right lower wing with two 2-light windows; to left still lower wing with two small 2-light windows. On main longitudinal ridge three stacks.
East elevation to platform: 3 bays: left and right projecting gables, each with trefoil oculus over triple window with two stone mullions; centre 4-light, outer 2-light sashes; in centre modern masonry wall with three 2-light windows (see Note 3). To left lower wing with two 2-light windows; to right still lower wing with door opening to left and to right two small blind recesses infilled in stone. Timber diagonally boarded fence along this elevation separates the building from the disused platform.
South end elevation: 2 bays, left: 2-light window; right: gabled with modern 2-light window left, single door to right. Trefoil oculus in gable.
North end elevation: 2 bays, right: originally double doors; left: plain lower gable to wing with door to left and access hatch to right.
Notes:
1: This is a Type 2, Medium, former Main Station Building and Booking Office, and stands on the down, northbound platform, from which it is fenced off. The station was opened by the Midland Railway on 1st May 1876, then closed on 5th November 1956 and later sold into private ownership. The building is now in private residential use.
2: It is listed Grade II as “Cumwhinton Station” (List Entry Number 1335564 listed 1984-03-09). The description, which includes the Waiting Room (SCRCA Location ID 304150) on the up, southbound platform, is in certain respects no longer correct.
3: The glazed screen to the platform side of the recessed waiting room in three bays, present when the building was listed, was later replaced by masonry and windows as noted.
Acknowledgements and revision history
This formal description was prepared by Richard J. A. Tinker from photographs and a site assessment carried out on 1st August 2019. It was last updated on 23rd September 2019.