Railway Station Buffet And Adjacent Station Buildings

Railway Station Buffet and Adjacent Station Buildings

A railway station, now converted to use as a buffet, club and station offices, built in 1863 for the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company. The building has undergone twentieth-century alterations including re-roofing, re-glazing, and additions to the north end.

The building is constructed in Italianate style and is rectangular on plan. The west front is of brown brick in English Garden Wall bond, while the east front is of red brick in Flemish bond, with sandstone ashlar and yellow and blue brick dressings. The roof is covered with artificial slate to the north and concrete tiles to the south, with a truncated cast iron rooftop water tank to the southern extension. The structure is two storeys high.

The plan consists of a symmetrical central range with a projecting three-bay central section flanked by recessed wings of three wide bays. A gabled cross wing projects to the north, and a large four-bay range extends to the south with a single-storey two-bay store at the south end.

The west front facing Station Road has a moulded plinth. The projecting three-bay central section features an arcade of round arches with pilasters, moulded rubbed yellow brick arches with ashlar keystones and hoodmoulds, and flush yellow brick and dentilled red brick impost bands. The lower and narrower central arch contains an original part-glazed panelled double door with a plain fanlight. The flanking arches have recessed paired round-headed windows with ashlar sills, yellow brick arches and twentieth-century glazing with boarded upper sections. The building features a brick eaves band and moulded eaves brackets. The hipped roof incorporates a twentieth-century re-glazed clerestorey, with a hipped upper roof with crested ridge tiles.

The range to the left has three ground-floor four-pane sashes with ashlar sills and yellow brick bond. Part of this section is obscured by an unsympathetic twentieth-century single-storey rendered lean-to entrance lobby. The range to the right is similar but includes a twentieth-century part-glazed door and an original ground-floor two-bay lean-to in the angle, featuring a twentieth-century door and window in original segmental-headed openings. Both ranges have three four-pane first-floor sashes beneath segmental arches, with a smaller additional four-pane sash to the right.

The projecting gabled wing at the left end has a ground-floor tripartite plate-glass sash with a sill beneath a segmental yellow brick arch flanked by a three-course flush band. A pair of first-floor round-headed sashes with a sill are positioned beneath yellow brick arches with an impost band. The wing displays deep bracketed eaves with a moulded bargeboard, though it is adjoined by an unsympathetic twentieth-century addition.

The building features multiple chimney stacks: a pair of tall ridge stacks flanking the central section, a ridge stack to the left wing, and a pair of side-wall stacks at the left end, all with yellow brick and ashlar-capped bases, chamfered shafts, brick bands and cornices.

The taller projecting four-bay section to the right has a round-arched arcade similar to the central section, with recessed paired round-headed windows to the first three bays and a four-panelled door and single window to the fourth bay, all beneath yellow brick arches. All windows have unsympathetic twentieth-century plain glazing. This section has a stepped eaves band, a pair of roof dormers with two-light cross windows beneath flat roofs, and a weatherboarded clerestorey above with five recessed panels, perhaps former windows. Stone-coped gables are present, with end stacks having moulded plinths. The right gable end has a tall blind keyed yellow brick round arch.

A tall single-storey section set back to the right end has a board door and small two-pane sash beneath segmental arches. A blocked segmental-headed window lies to the left, with an ashlar string-course and the bottom section of the truncated cast iron water tank forming a flat roof.

The east platform front has a chamfered plinth. The projecting central bay contains segmental-headed doors and four-pane sashes double doors to the right, all beneath segmental first-floor sashes. To the right is a central tripartite ground-floor sash beneath a segmental arch flanked by a flush band, with triple round-headed first-floor sashes and a flush impost band. Deep bracketed eaves are present. A two-bay section to the right has a four-panelled door and four-pane sash to the original ground-floor section, with an unsympathetic twentieth-century first-floor addition above.

The projecting four-bay section to the left has similar arcading to the west front, with paired round-headed openings: two with part-glazed panelled doors and six with windows, one partly blocked to the left, all featuring twentieth-century glazing. A brick eaves band and moulded eaves brackets are present. A pair of roof dormers similar to those on the west front are present, with that to the left incorporating an inserted door opening onto a small cast iron railed balcony. A similar weatherboarded clerestorey to the west front is present.

A recessed single-storey section to the left has a board door and twelve-pane sash beneath segmental arches, with a flush yellow brick band. A central section between the outer wings features a lean-to glass-roofed canopy carried on a plain steel frame.

This was the original station range serving a single-track line from Grimsby. It was largely superseded by an adjacent six-track terminus built in the 1880s, of which the Refreshment Rooms, Clocktower and adjoining section survive relatively intact. An early illustration of the station shows the round-headed windows with four panes and eight clerestorey windows in the south range.