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. 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. Entrance to former waiting room and booking office with glazed screen to platform in three bays with glazing each side of double timber doors (see Note 1). 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. 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 3-bay glazed screen with cast-iron glazing on each side of double timber doors. To left lower wing with two 2-light windows; to right still lower wing with door opening to left and to right two small 2-light window openings infilled in stone. Metal guard rail on platform opposite the entrance glazed screen and opposite north and south ends of the elevation; mounted in stone slabs which accommodate slight changes in level of the platform close to the building.
North end elevation: 2 bays, right: originally double doors, now with modern 4-light window to left of doors and 2-light window to right; left: plain lower gable to wing with door to left and access hatch to right.
South end elevation: 2 bays, left: 2-light window; right: gabled with single doors to left and to right, the left door panelled, the right door plain. Trefoil oculus in gable.
Notes:
1: The glazed screen to the platform side of the recessed waiting room is in three bays, fitted between shallow stone 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 stone nibs. Above the capitals the columns are square in section, to which are fitted two decorative brackets in each bay, together supporting a timber beam with ashlar 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 diagonal boarded timber panels below, on stone plinths similar in height to those of the main external walls adjacent. The three vertical glazing bars in each window have three and two half diagonal square panes inserted at mid-height.
2: This is a Type 2, Medium, former Main Station Building and Booking Office, and stands on the down, northbound platform. The station was opened by the Midland Railway on 1st October 1876, then closed on 4th May 1970 and later sold into private ownership. The station was re-opened to passenger traffic on 14th July 1986. The building has been in use as a restaurant.
3: It is not listed.
4: Modern stone built slated pitched roofed waiting room (SCRCA Location ID 288305) on down northbound platform, adjacent to north end of building.
5: On opposite platform stands a timber built waiting room (SCRCA Location ID 288270), slated roof with pierced ridge tiles and lead/metal covered gable cappings; similar to but shorter than an earlier building (3 bays, rather than 5); modern, opened on 1st May 1998.
Acknowledgements and revision history
This formal description was prepared by Richard J. A. Tinker from photographs and a site assessment carried out on 19th September 2019. It was last updated on 3rd October 2019.