St Helens Junction Station

St Helens Junction Station is a railway station built in 1851 on the original Liverpool & Manchester Railway line. The building is constructed of red brick laid in Flemish bond with painted sandstone dressings, and is covered by a shallow hipped Welsh slate roof. It is a single-storey structure with a classical style and linear plan.

The station originally served three platforms: two through lines on the south-east side and a bay platform on the north-west side for local services. The track on the north-west side has since been removed and replaced by a taxi and car drop-off point, although the original large sandstone platform-edge stones survive.

The building is long and low, with a similar design to both the north-west and south-east platform sides. Two through walkways separate the structure into three sections. Large windows containing a mixture of multipaned and plate-glass sashes and fixed lights are fitted with modern metal grilles in front. All original door and window surrounds, mullions and transoms are of painted sandstone.

The roof features an eaves cornice and tile ridge copings, with two short brick ridge stacks to the north-east half of the building. The roof overhangs all four sides, forming a canopy supported at the centre of the north-west and south-east sides by square and panelled cast-iron columns with carved capitals and plain bases, and arched girders. These form three-bay arcaded integral shelters with recessed panels to the rear walls. A very small extension, believed to have been added in the mid-20th century and possibly a kiosk, has been added towards the north-east end of the north-west shelter underneath the canopy.

At each end of the building are waiting rooms and former offices. The south-west end was possibly originally a station master's office or bookings and parcels office, and now contains disused toilets and a store room. It features a transomed window, a six-light mullioned and transomed window to the south-east platform side (both boarded over), an original doorway with overlight (boarded over) to the north-east return adjacent to the through passageway, and a large six-light mullioned and transomed window to the north-west platform side (boarded over). A later small fixed-pane window with a chamfered lintel in the same style as those to the kiosk has been inserted to the north-west side, and a doorway in the same style has been inserted on the south-west side leading to the toilets with a metal gate.

At the north-east end are two waiting rooms (one for ladies and one general waiting room, now subdivided internally), denoted by the presence of the ridge stacks above. The far north-east end has two six-light mullioned and transomed windows to the south-east platform side, an entrance doorway with an overlight and a replaced door, and a sash window to the north-east end return. A further sash window with a wedge lintel exists to the north-west platform side where a small section of walling has been rebuilt. The adjacent waiting room has a doorway on the south-east platform side with a modern glazed door and an external roller shutter, flanked by two six-light mullioned and transomed windows. Two further windows in the same style exist to the north-west platform side.

Internally, the two large waiting rooms at the north-east end feature moulded cornicing and moulded window architraves. The waiting room immediately to the north-east of the integral shelters has been subdivided by insertion of a brick dividing wall with kiosk window and door to create a ticket office. It retains timber bench seating with panelled high backs and shaped end panels in the two corners flanking a chimneybreast and along part of the north-west and south-east walls. A fireplace with a painted-brick surround survives, though the fireplace opening has been boarded over. The former waiting room at the far north-east end has been partitioned for use as a former parcel room, toilet, and storage room, with a doorway inserted to connect into the ticket office. It retains its chimneybreast, but the fireplace has been removed and one of the windows looking onto the south-east platform has been boarded over internally. The entrance to the toilets is visible behind a metal gate and has a quarry-tile floor and glazed-tile walls.