Railway Station Building

Railway station buildings at Station Road, Lancaster

A railway station complex dating from 1846, with extensions in 1852 and 1900–1906, and restoration around 1990. Designed by William Tite for the Lancaster and Carlisle Railway Company, with later additions by Austin and Paley. The buildings are executed in Tudor Revival style.

The original 1846 building is constructed of roughly squared sandstone rubble with ashlar dressings, while extensions elsewhere use squared and snecked rubble with ashlar dressings. Slate roofs throughout feature diminishing courses with coped gables and kneelers. The chimney stacks are arranged in picturesque profusion of position and shape, including 2 with octagonal shafts.

The original building comprises 5 bays over 2 storeys. It has a recessed centre of 3 narrow bays between 2 wider gabled crosswings. The crosswings contain, on the ground floor, a pair of 2-light mullioned windows with hoodmoulds, and on the first floor, a single 3-light mullioned and transomed window beneath a hoodmould. The recessed centre features an entrance beneath 3 Tudor arches, now glazed. Above this are three 2-light windows, the central one being taller with a transom and rising into a gabled dormer. All these windows have double chamfers.

The 10-bay extension to the right (added in 1852) has fairly regular fenestration with windows taller on the ground floor than the first, mostly of 3 or 4 lights on both floors of each bay. The last 5 bays project slightly to balance the original building. The first of these has a narrow gable and contains a former entrance with a 2-centred arch and hoodmould beneath a scroll; above is a 2-light window with a transom and segmental pointed heads beneath a hoodmould and relieving arch. The final bay is wider and rises as a 3-storey block detailed to resemble a pele tower (the station was originally called Lancaster Castle). It features a tall square turret with a stone pyramidal roof to the left, then 2 small windows with shouldered lintels on the ground floor, a deeply-projecting square oriel on the first floor with a 5-light mullioned and transomed window, and a 2-light mullioned window on the second floor beneath stepped battlements. Beneath the central merlon is a shield bearing the arms of the former Borough of Lancaster above a scroll painted with the motto "Luck to Loyne".

The platform facade has a projecting canopy supported on iron columns. An iron footbridge with timber window frames and felt roof connects the west building with the island platform and the higher ground-floor level of the present eastern main entrance, which dates from 1900. The island platform contains 2 single-storey blocks, one to each side of the footbridge, built of rock-faced sandstone with mullioned and transomed windows and pitched slate roofs. They are linked by a platform canopy on the west side.

The eastern building, dating from 1900, has a single-storey entrance facade on its east side, almost symmetrical with a parapet featuring saddlebacked coping. Near the centre are 2 Tudor-arched doorways, with a 3-light window with 2 transoms and 2 cross windows to the right, and 2 window openings and a Tudor-arched doorway to the left. The front wall has 2 rainwater hoppers dated 1900. A shallow entrance canopy is supported on iron brackets and topped with a glass roof with timber valance.

Historical context: When the railway line from Preston was extended through Lancaster over Shap Fell to Carlisle in 1846, this station was built to replace the original station on Penny Street, now the Nurses' Home on Ashton Road.