Former North Eastern Railway Company Offices And Area Railings Attached

Former North Eastern Railway Company Offices and Area Railings Attached

This is a major office building constructed between 1900 and 1906 for the North Eastern Railway Company, designed by H Field and W Bell. The building is situated on the north-west side of Toft Green in York and is listed at Grade II* for its architectural and historical significance.

The structure exemplifies the Baroque Revival style and demonstrates exceptional craftsmanship in its materials and detailing. The building is constructed of orange-red brick laid in English bond, set upon a Portland stone basement. The principal architectural features — the doorcase, pilasters, quoins, dressings, frieze, and enriched modillion cornice — are all executed in ashlar. The roof is finished with Westmorland slate and features stone-coped gables and ashlar pediments with volute kneelers. Brick stacks rise from stone plinths, detailed with stone bands and moulded cornices. The attached area railings are wrought iron, mounted on a moulded stone plinth.

The entrance front presents a sophisticated composition of basement and three storeys, articulated by a 3-bay frontispiece breaking forward between 7-bay flanking ranges that terminate in 3-bay gabled crosswings. The frontispiece and crosswings rise to 2-storey attics. A staircase tower of basement and five storeys is set back at the right end.

The frontispiece is articulated by paired giant pilasters with consoles at the head supporting a moulded cornice. A semicircular gable between volutes and urn finials rises above this cornice. The centrepiece features a concave rusticated round-arched doorcase rising through two storeys, framed in a bolection-moulded architrave between fluted columns that carry a deep frieze and cornice supported on foliate consoles. A lunette fanlight occupies the arch tympanum. The carved frieze bears a cartouche inscribed "North Eastern Railways Head Offices".

The second-floor window is a 12-pane sash in a Gibbs surround with moulded cornice, opening on to a balcony whose balustrade incorporates the letters NER embedded in foliate tendrils. The attic contains a Venetian window in a Gibbs surround, positioned beneath a garlanded laurel wreath carved in high relief.

In the flanking ranges and crosswings, the ashlar basement plinth is stepped up beneath ground-floor windows. Ground-floor windows are 15-pane sashes; first-floor windows are 18-pane sashes, all within architraves with moulded sills and moulded cornice hoods on the first floor. The second-floor sashes in the flanking ranges are 12-pane, without hoods. In the crosswings, the second-floor sashes are squat, set in lugged architraves over aprons carved with festoons in high relief. Attic windows in the crosswings are 12-pane sashes in eared and keyed segment-headed architraves with moulded sills. The gable-end window is an 18-pane sash with moulded sill on blocks and a sill band, beneath a triple-keyed hoodmould on consoles. Below this window is a circular panel in a keyed raised surround, half enclosed in acanthus fronds.

A segmental pediment crowns the gable apex, over a panel carved in relief with festoons and flanked by volutes. Attics to the flanking ranges feature 12-pane sashes in the lowest tier of dormers, beneath alternately triangular and segmental pediments; the second and third tiers are flat with small-pane casement windows. Four sets of square-section rainwater goods with rectangular hoppers are present.

The staircase tower contains a fielded panelled door approached by steps, framed in an architrave with a stepped keyed lintel. Windows are square lattice casements in architraves with moulded sills; one is segment-headed with a triple keyblock, one is eared on the fourth floor, and those on the fifth floor are set in relief-carved surrounds of fruit and foliage. A console cornice supports a concave-sided pyramidal roof, truncated and surmounted by a pedimented cupola topped with a steam engine weathervane.

The left return comprises basement, three storeys, and attics arranged in eight bays. The outer bays bow from basement to first floor, whilst the centre bays are gabled, featuring a 3-light bow window on the first floor. Windows and detailing generally follow the main front, except that windows flanking the first-floor central bow are elongated 24-pane sashes opening on to balconies with balustrades matching those on the main front. Beneath the first-floor central bow is a corbelled-out cartouche carved with the constituent badges of the North Eastern Railway Company. Three of four sets of lead rainwater goods survive, dated 1904 and embossed "NER".

The right return comprises three storeys and attics, gabled at centre, with six first-floor windows. A tower of three storeys and an attic is set back at the right end. The detailing repeats that of the main front. The tower features a sash window in an architrave on each floor and a moulded cornice beneath the parapet.

The area railings attached to the front and left return stand on a low plinth and feature square-section railings incorporating openwork panels of scrolled lyre motifs and arabesques. The square-section standards are topped with orb finials.

The interior has not been inspected.