Central Railway Station; passenger buildings and train shed with platforms

Central Railway Station

A railway station built between 1845 and 1850 by John Dobson for the York, Newcastle and Berwick Railway Company. The portico was added in 1860 by Prosser for the North Eastern Railway Company, and the station was extended around 1890 by W. Bell. The building is constructed in sandstone ashlar with roofs not visible from outside. The train shed combines wrought and cast iron.

The station has a curved plan comprising front, central and rear ranges with a main entrance portico. It is designed in the Classical style as a single high-storey building. The frontage consists of 21 bays in total: 7-bay wings flank a high 7-bay portico. The portico features keyed arches framed by paired Doric pilasters beneath an entablature with triglyph frieze and a parapet with pilasters. The wings have paired sashes under a dentilled band and 4-paned lunettes, all beneath a top entablature with triglyph frieze and blocking course. The end bays have high plinths supporting rusticated, hollow-chamfered arches with mask keystones; attached Tuscan columns within the arches flank windows, with lunettes above.

The interior booking hall contains paired Tuscan columns. The refreshment room is decorated with Burmantofts faience in Baroque style covering the walls and ceilings. The train shed employs cast iron columns with simple leaf capitals supporting low-curved segmental girders. John Dobson was awarded a medal in 1858 at Paris for devising rollers to shape these girders. The roof, panels of which were replicated around 1979 to match the originals, has wide glazed sections with central ridged ventilators.

Hotel Accommodation

When plans to construct a hotel designed by Dobson at the east end of the station were cancelled, integral hotel accommodation was provided within the station itself. This accommodation was fitted into the east range behind the lunette windows of the Neville Street frontage and within several floors of a short, rectangular, angled rear range. Rooms were later created within the upper floors of the station's east pavilion, which had previously been used as stores.

All three accommodation locations are accessed from a tall stair hall top-lit by a full-length atrium, containing a dog-leg stair with ornate cast-iron balusters and a ramped handrail. The Neville Street range is served by a long corridor positioned on the south side of the first floor and the north side of the second floor; the latter is accessed through a round-arched and keyed opening flanked by 4/4 hornless sash windows. Six-panel doors with moulded architraves are found throughout these areas. The selected rooms inspected retained moulded cornices, and some have arched recesses and panelled corner windows. Rooms within the rear angled range are accessed through an arched opening into a short central corridor with original six-panel doors. Four original rooms survive on the first floor with panelled reveals and soffits and simple fire surrounds; on the second floor, partitions have been removed to form two large rooms, though original doors remain. Within the station's east pavilion, the former first floor linen room has been fitted with secondary bedrooms. The former large second floor store rooms, also within the east pavilion, have been converted to bedrooms but largely retain their original form and original room doors. All bedrooms have inserted en-suite bathrooms and modern sanitary ware. This mid-19th-century hotel accommodation is now linked to the Station Hotel at the western end via an inserted corridor and stair that blocks earlier window openings and cuts in half a large full-height window opening with panelled reveals and soffits.

The later bedrooms inserted into the first floor of the station's east pavilion, and all inserted en-suites including modern sanitary ware throughout the hotel accommodation, are declared not to be of special architectural or historic interest.