Description
Main Station Building and Booking Office (Closed). 1876. Architect: attributed to J.H.Sanders. Single storey, coursed rock-faced limestone 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. Several modern rooflights have been inserted into the roofs: 5 on east facing roofs, 1 on lower wing roof, 1 on each side of the central gable roofs; similar rooflights fitted on west facing roofs. 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. Waiting room with glazed screen to platform in three bays with glazing on each side of double timber doors (see Note 1). Continuous eaves boards with cast iron gutters.
East elevation to station grounds: 5 bays: to left, bay one, triple window with stone mullions and two 2-light and central 4-light windows. Bay two, projecting gable with small modern window in upper gable with ashlar sill, jambs and lintel; three windows, 2-light sashes to left and right, central 4-light. Bays 3 and 4, 2 triple windows as Bay one. Bay five, with two 2-light windows. On main longitudinal ridge four stacks. To left still lower wing with two small 2-light windows.
West elevation to platform: 5 bays: to left, bay one, small gable with trefoil oculus over two 2-light windows. Bay two, left door with fanlight, right one 4-light window. Bays three and five, projecting gables, each with trefoil oculus over triple window with two stone mullions; centre 4-light, outer 2-light sashes. Between bays three and five in bay four, 3-bay glazed screen with cast-iron glazing on each side of timber double doors under eaves of main roof. To right still lower wing with door opening to left and to right two small blind recessed openings.
South end elevation: 2 bays, right: double doors; left: plain lower gable to wing with doors to left and to right.
North end elevation: 2 bays, left: 2-light window; right: gabled with two single doors. Trefoil recess in upper gable.
Notes
1: The glazed screen to the platform side of the recessed waiting room is in three bays, fitted between shallow masonry nibs on the side walls. The three bays are separated by four columns, circular in section at bases, shafts and decorative capitals, the two outer columns being partly recessed into the masonry nibs. Above the capitals the columns are square in section, to which are fitted two decorative brackets in each bay, together supporting a beam and masonry over. Between the two centre columns is a pair of framed and diagonal panelled doors under a decorative transom linking column capitals. Above the transom is a fanlight with three glazing bars. In the bays on either side of the centre columns are windows with sills and timber panels below, on stone plinths similar in height to those of the main external walls adjacent. The three vertical glazing bars in the windows have three full and two half diagonal square panes inserted at mid-height.
2: This building is a Type 1, Large, former Main Station Building and Booking Office standing on the up, southbound platform. The station was opened by the Midland Railway on 1st May 1876. It was renamed “Kirkby Stephen and Ravenstonedale” on 1st October 1900 but reverted to “Kirkby Stephen” on 1st January 1935. It was further renamed “Kirkby Stephen West” on 8th June 1953 but again reverted to “Kirkby Stephen” on 6th May 1968. The station was closed on 4th May 1970 and this building sold out of railway use. The station was re-opened to passenger traffic on 14th July 1986. The building is in lettable residential use in two self-catering holiday apartments; there is a separate meeting room.
3: It is not listed.
Acknowledgements and revision history
This formal description was prepared by Richard J. A. Tinker from photographs and a site assessment carried out on 14th September 2019. It was last updated on 23rd September 2019.