Description
Main Station Building and Booking Office (Closed). 1876. Architect: attributed to J.H. Sanders. Single storey, coursed rock-faced red sandstone with ashlar quoins to angles and openings; pitched slated roofs fitted with plain ridge tiles on generally common ridge lines. Stone chimney stacks; gables on all elevations except south end gable with pierced decorative timber bargeboards. Timber doors, timber casement windows, three with camber-heads, others with straight lintels. Waiting room with glazed screen to platform in three bays with glazing on each side of double timber doors.
West elevation to station approach: 3 bays, centre: projecting gable with quatrefoil decorative oculus over 6-light camber-headed window with transom and two mullions, all lights with margin panes; bays to left and right each with two 2-light windows with transoms, straight lintels and margin panes. On main longitudinal ridge 2 stacks. To right further lower wing with 1 single-light and 1 double-light margin-paned windows, the latter in place of assumed original timber access hatch. To left further C20 extension directly connected to existing building gable; low pitched slated roof, plain bargeboards; walls apparently rendered on unknown backing; 3 windows and a door.
East elevation to platform: 3 bays: left and right projecting gables, each with quatrefoil oculus over 6-light camber-headed window with transom and two mullions, all lights with margin panes; in centre 3-bay glazed timber screen with cast-iron glazing on each side of timber double doors, roofed with shallower pitched cat-slide extension to main roof. To left further lower wing with 1-light and 2-light windows flanking central timber door. To right further C20 extension directly connected to existing building gable; low pitched slated roof, plain bargeboards; walls apparently rendered on unknown backing; all as above but with 2 windows.
North end elevation: All obscured by C20 extension.
South end elevation: 2 bays, right: single 2-light margin-paned window; left: plain lower gable to wing with timber door to right and 1-light margin paned window to left.
Notes
1: Close to the south end elevation of the existing building is a separate single storey C20 building; walls apparently rendered on unknown backing; low pitched corrugated metal roofing; 2 runs of glazing and a door to front wall; 1 window in south elevation.
2: 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. The columns support a beam and masonry over. Between the two centre columns is a pair of framed and diagonal panelled doors. 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 windows have two vertical glazing bars and two horizontal bars. Within the intersection of the bars three circular panes are inserted at mid-height.
3: This building is a Type 3, Small, former Main Station Building and Booking Office, standing 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 2nd June 1952 and the building later sold into private ownership. It is currently (2018) in use as an Education Centre opened on 17th July 2017.
Acknowledgements and revision history
This formal description was prepared by Richard J. A. Tinker from drawings, photographs and a site assessment carried out on 23rd August 2019. It was last updated on 2nd March 2020.