Great Malvern Station

Great Malvern Station

Station buildings for the Worcester and Hereford Railway, constructed 1861–62, designed by Edmund Wallace Elmslie with sculpture and metalwork by William Forsyth.

The station comprises platform and station buildings running north–south on either side of the railway line, positioned at the bottom of a railway cutting. Both platform ranges are single storied. The western range has an entrance front facing the station forecourt to its west and the platform to its east. The eastern range has the platform on its west side and a covered passenger approach slope on its eastern side descending to the platform. The eastern platform building adjoins the Railway Bridge to Great Malvern Station (Grade II) at its northern end and connects to a pedestrian walkway leading upwards to the former Imperial Hotel building, now Malvern St James's School, both likely also designed by Elmslie. An underpass with brick walls and cast and wrought iron panel balustrades connects the two platforms.

Materials and Construction

The buildings are constructed in rubble stone with sandstone and limestone ashlar dressings, with slate and corrugated metal roofing and cast and wrought iron ornament. Both platform ranges feature deep canopies supported by elaborate cast-iron girders resting on columns with elaborate capitals. These capitals are decorated with wrought iron foliage standing proud of the cast ironwork. According to The Builder in 1863, the foliage was designed to introduce 'the plants of the neighbourhood'. Chimney stacks throughout the building rise to full height with offsets and moulded tops. Ridges are decorated with cast iron cresting and wrought iron finials.

The Western Platform Range

The west front faces onto a station forecourt with an oval carriage circuit leading from Avenue Road, centred on a raised garden. The principal part of the front is framed by gables—a joined group of three to the left and a single gable at right. Three of these gables have circular stone vents with arched hoodmoulds. The fenestration is deliberately random according to internal functions. The majority of windows have arched heads; three are square-topped, and there is a canted bay window to the left beneath one of the joined gables. A pair of windows to the left of centre has elaborate decorative brackets supporting timber-framed gablets. A trio of windows in a slightly projecting wing with a hipped roof forms a symmetrical grouping with a two-light window at the centre and lancets to either side. A basket-arched entrance is set at right of centre with variegated voussoirs. Doors are semi-glazed and windows are sashes. At far right is a horse trough, slightly recessed beneath a relieving arch with variegated voussoirs. Recessed at far left is a block fronted by a deep area formed by the inclined approach from Avenue Road; this has blind stone walling with a doorway and a penthouse roof with louvered sides and a glazed pitched roof, to the centre of which is a single ashlar chimney stack.

The platform front features sash windows in arched and flat-headed surrounds and semi-glazed doors. There is a canted bay window and two doorways with colonettes to either side, bearing carved foliate capitals and basket-arched heads with variegated voussoirs and fanlights. A wall-mounted post box with the initials 'VR' in relief is positioned at the southern end. A platform weighing machine is set in front of the bay window, with a large cast iron plate flush with the platform surface bearing the inscription 'TO WEIGH – 20 CWT / HENRY POOLEY & SONS / BIRMINGHAM / & LONDON'.

A new ticket office was formed in the late 20th century in a gap between two 19th-century buildings at the southern end of this western range. It incorporates a wide 19th-century basket arch on its eastern side leading onto the western platform. Its roof and western wall are glazed, and the roof extends west to form an awning. (Under section 1(5) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990, it is declared that the glazed roof and western wall of this late-20th-century booking office are not of special architectural or historic interest.)

The Eastern Platform Range

The western face of the eastern platform has 13 columned bays divided by cast iron columns with elaborate capitals as described above. The waiting room doorway has a half-glazed door and colonettes with carved heads supporting alternately-coloured voussoirs of a basket arch. Round-arched windows flank this doorway. The back wall of the platform is blind. The projecting waiting room at the south end has a moulded ashlar coping and a chimney with offsets and a moulded cap at its centre. At the centre of the east platform rear wall is the entrance to the approach ramp, which has continuous frosted glass glazing to its south side and a gabled roof. A small rectangular service projection and quadrant-shaped yard, both appearing to be original, stand immediately to the south.