The Old Station House (formerly the booking office to Watford Station)

The Old Station House

The Old Station House is the former booking office to the original Watford Railway Station, built in 1837 for the London and Birmingham Railway. It was designed by George Aitchison Senior and constructed by William Starie of London. The station closed in 1858, after which the booking office was remodelled and extended, probably as a residential dwelling. It is now used as an office.

The building is constructed of Flemish bond brick with brick stacks and a slate roof. It stands on a north-west to south-east alignment with a rectangular plan. A boundary wall runs south-east from the left-hand return to St Albans Road, with a lean-to privy house adjoining the west side of the wall.

The building is single-storey and comprises a three-bay main range with an outshut adjoining the south-east gable end. All window and door openings have gauged skewback arches with cambered soffits, and the windows have stone lintels. The windows to the rear elevation are all early 21st-century replacements.

The principal elevation faces north-east and is divided into three symmetrical bays. The right-hand bay is of original brown brick while the remaining two bays and the outshut are of later-19th-century purple and brown brick. The centre bay contains a four-panelled door with ovolo-moulded fillets and a rectangular fanlight, flanked to the right by a six-over-one unhorned sash and to the left by a six-over-six unhorned sash, both with painted reveals. Above is a cement rendered parapet carried round to the gable ends to form a minimal pediment. The gabled north-west elevation and the north-east face of the outshut are both blind. The roof has four later-19th-century stacks of purple and brown brick with terracotta pots.

The rear elevation faces south-west across the West Coast Main Line railway and is also of three symmetrical bays. The left-hand and centre bays are of original brown brick while the right-hand bay is of later-19th-century purple and brown brick. The centre bay contains a narrow four-over-four unhorned sash, with six-over-six unhorned sashes in the flanking bays. Above is a cement rendered parapet. The outshut also has a single six-over-six unhorned sash.

The interior is of lesser interest. A small vestibule behind the entrance door leads to a short corridor running across the depth of the building on a north-east to south-west alignment, with two rooms off each side. The ground level on the south-east side is slightly raised. At the west end of the corridor is a small toilet of 20th-century date. All rooms except the north-east corner room, where the door has been removed, are accessed through four-panelled doors with moulded architraves. The rooms retain plain skirting boards and late-20th-century suspended ceilings. All but the south-east corner room have plain wooden fire surrounds to blocked fireplaces.

The north-east corner room has built-in cupboards with panelled doors on either side of the north wall fireplace. Its east-facing sash window has a deep reveal with hinged and panelled shutters set within a moulded architrave. The north-west corner room has a moulded picture rail running round the north, east and west sides, though the plaster ceiling, plywood floor and window joinery all date from the early 21st century. The south-west corner room also has early-21st-century window joinery. The south-east corner room has a deep window reveal with hinged and panelled shutters and a moulded architrave, with a cupboard beneath the window sill. At the centre of the south wall is a mid-20th-century tiled fireplace with a late-20th-century gas fire. To the right of the fireplace is a four-panelled door providing access to the outshut, which has an encaustic tiled floor and is fitted with late-20th-century kitchen units.

A later-19th-century boundary wall adjoins the left-hand side of the outshut, running 7.4 metres in a north-west to south-east alignment to St Albans Road. It is of Flemish bond brick with a braced and ledged door beneath a cambered head at the right-hand side. A privy house is built against the rear south-west side of the wall.