Preston Railway Station

Preston Railway Station

Railway station built in 1880 by Cooper and Tullis of Preston for the London and North Western and the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway Companies. The building was altered at various dates, with renovations in progress at the time of survey in 1989.

The booking hall and offices are constructed of buff brick with sandstone dressings, granite plinths and slate roofs. The train sheds are of cast-iron and steel with roofs of glass and corrugated sheet. The station comprises three island platforms, with the centre platform much wider than the others. Its north end is covered by a descending approach road leading to the entrance block (the booking hall), and its centre is occupied by three brick ranges on the same axis containing additional offices. A fourth platform stands on the east side, now forming the entrance front from Butler Street.

The entrance block has a tripartite rectangular plan with a symmetrical facade. The centre section is five bays wide and two storeys tall with an attic, flanked by single-storey three-bay offices. The side offices are protected by the glazed gable-ends of the two principal train sheds, while the centre section is embraced by them. The ground floor of the centre is open-arcaded with the front arcade faced with Tuscan columns of punched granite. The first floor has five sashed windows with moulded architraves, framed by a sill-band, banded corner pilasters and a prominent bracketed cornice. Above this sits a mansard roof treated as an attic, with three pedimented dormers (the larger one in the centre containing a clock), wrought-iron cresting with scrolls and anthemions, and tall side-wall chimneys. The flanking side offices have sandstone plinths, channelled corner pilasters, and stilted-arched openings with moulded architraves linked by imposts bands, including a doorway in the centre to the left.

To the left are the gables of two wide aisled train sheds, both slightly bowed with vertical-paned glazing (the outer one smaller). To the right is the gable of the third train shed with altered glazing. The east side wall facing Butler Street has been altered at various dates, principally by removal of the former booking office, and was recently renovated. It is mostly a continuous arcade of stilted arched windows matching those of the office blocks on the main platform.

Interior

The three brick ranges on the main platform are three bays wide and respectively fifteen, eighteen and twelve bays long, with uniform design throughout. Each has a tall ground floor treated as a stilted arcade, with piers on moulded plinths of grey granite and otherwise of buff brick with moulded sandstone frames, capitals and architraves. The openings are mostly filled with tripartite wooden and glazed screens with dentilled cornices at impost level and radiating glazing bars in the overlights. Between the arches are small carved corbels supporting cast-iron roof brackets with foliated open-work. A string course runs above the arches, with a moulded frieze and cornice.

All these blocks, including the entrance, are linked by sections matching the structure of the main sheds. The gap between the centre and south ranges has been reduced to a tunnel by modern brick infilling.

The train shed has a four-span roof carried on cast-iron columns featuring fern-leaf enrichment to the feet and stiff-leaf and lily decoration to the caps. The columns are linked by arched longitudinal latticed girders with rosette and tendril decoration. Steel arch-braces with cast-iron foliated open-work and steel roof trusses with webs of tension rods are linked by latticed clasped purlins. Foliated arch-braced trusses support the central smoke-louvres.

A ramp descends from the booking office to the main platform, protected by cast-iron railings with large rosette open-work panels and top rail with star-and-spike cresting. Footbridges at the entrance end are of cast and wrought-iron, with latticed sides to the deck and straight steps with half-landings and decorated iron balustrading. Subways link the centres of the platforms. These are entered from the central platform by a U-ramp and from the east island by a straight ramp, both protected by twisted bar railings, and from the west island by steps protected by panelled railings.

History

The station was built as a compound station to replace a former complex of separate platforms and offices built by different railway companies since 1838. A First World War memorial plaque dedicated to The Preston Pals 'D' Company the 7th (Service) Battalion of the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment (19th West Division), designed by John Shaw, was installed between Platforms 3 and 4 in 2012.