Former Liverpool Road Railway Station Station Masters House

Former Liverpool Road Railway Station, Station Master's House

Passenger railway station at the terminus of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, now part of a museum complex. The booking offices were built in 1830 by George Stephenson for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company. The Station Master's house dates from 1808 and was originally occupied by the station agent. The buildings have been altered over time. They are constructed in red brick with the booking offices faced with sandstone ashlar and stucco, and have hipped slate roofs.

The complex is arranged on a rectangular plan parallel to the street, with the house positioned to the left of the booking offices and an added range of former shops to the right. The whole composition is in Classical style.

The booking offices form a two-storey, four-bay facade facing the street, symmetrical except for the fourth bay. The ground floor has channelled rustication, and the upper floor has panelled pilasters. A moulded cornice and high parapet with cornice and blocking course crown the composition. The second bay, which marks the centre of the symmetrical portion and contains the entrance to the 1st Class booking hall, projects slightly forward. It features a large square-headed doorway with an architrave of coupled pilasters, a moulded cornice and blocking course, and is surmounted by a vase-pedestal sundial. A recessed panelled door with rectangular overlight sits below this. At first floor level, a tripartite sashed window with a cornice lights this bay. The flanking bays have 15-pane sashed windows at ground floor, flanked by wide segmental-headed tripartite sashed windows with glazing bars. At first floor these bays have 12-pane sashes with moulded architraves. The fourth bay, containing the entrance to the 2nd Class booking hall, has a doorway at ground floor similar to the others but with single pilasters, and a 12-pane sash above. The interior contains separate booking halls and staircases leading to the platform. The rear elevation has two doorways to the platform with moulded stone surrounds, a tripartite sashed window to the left of the 1st Class doorway, and a one-light sash to the left of the other. To the east, an added hipped-roof platform canopy rests on slender iron columns; twentieth-century offices with a glazed screen wall have been inserted beneath this roof.

The former house to the left of the booking offices is three storeys high and three bays wide, with a symmetrical facade. It has a doorway with a pedimented stone architrave, sashed windows of 16 panes at ground and first floors and 12 panes at second floor, all with raised sills and flat-arched heads. The eaves are modillioned. The return wall features a double-splayed left corner with sashed windows and blind windows.

To the right of the booking offices is a long nine-bay range that has been recently rebuilt or restored. It formerly contained shops at ground floor level with a train shed above. The range is stuccoed at ground floor with coupled pilasters, a first-floor sill-band, a moulded cornice, and a high brick parapet carried across from the booking offices. Most bays have symmetrical openings including a round-headed doorway at ground floor flanked by windows in segmental-headed blank arches, with two windows above.

This is the oldest surviving passenger railway station in the world. It ceased to handle passenger traffic in 1844 when Hunt's Bank station opened, now known as Victoria Station, but continued in use as a goods station until 1975. The station forms a group with the Old Warehouse on the opposite side of the railway track.