Weybourne Railway Station

Weybourne Railway Station

This railway station was built in 1900 for the Midland and Great Northern Joint Railway Company, probably to a design by William Marriott, the company engineer, and opened in 1901. The station closed in 1964 but reopened in 1975 as a heritage station on the North Norfolk Railway's preserved line. The line originally ran from Sheringham to Weybourne but was extended to Holt in 1989.

The station is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond with brick stacks and a plain clay-tiled roof with blue ridge tiles.

The original station building stands on the north side of the railway line on Platform 1 and is single-storeyed. It is rectangular in plan, aligned north-east to south-west, and comprises a booking hall, booking office, station master's office (now bookshop), waiting room (now buffet), ladies' waiting room, ladies' toilet, porters room, lamp room (now buffet kitchen), gentlemen's toilet and coal shed. Standing on the south side of the railway track on Platform 2 is a waiting room built in 1989 and a signal box of 1912 which was relocated from Holt Station in 1967. The two platforms are connected by a footbridge which was erected at Stowmarket Station in 1900 and re-erected at Weybourne in 1990. The signal box and waiting room on Platform 2 and the footbridge are excluded from the listing.

The station's architectural treatment includes chamfered plinths edged with splayed blue bricks (now painted black), timber-framed mullion and transom windows with gauged-brick cambered heads and chamfered blue-brick cills (the latter also painted black), panelled doors under gauged-brick cambered heads, gabled roofs with pierced ridge tiles and spike finials, and ridge stacks with moulded caps and cornices.

The station's road-side elevation is formed of two distinct blocks: a symmetrical range of 1:3:1 bays to the right-hand side and an asymmetrical three-bay range set back to the left-hand side with a lower ridge line. The right-hand range accommodates the booking hall, booking office, station master's office (now bookshop), ladies' waiting room and ladies' toilet. It has a central doorway flanked by two-light windows, the former with two-panelled double doors with raised and fielded panels with bolection mouldings under a dripmould and brass lantern. The flanking single bays are gabled and project with stone kneelers, blue terracotta coping stones, spike finials and three-light windows under dripmoulds. Within each gable are cambered-headed niches with chamfered cills and dripmoulds bearing the inscriptions 'AD' (left-hand side) and '1900' (right-hand side).

The asymmetrical three-bay range to the left-hand side accommodates a waiting room (now buffet), lamp room (now buffet kitchen) and porters room. Its right-hand bay has a double doorway with two-panel double doors with vertical plank panels under a dripmould. To its left is a three-light window and to the left again is a two-light window, both under dripmoulds. Its gabled left-hand return has three-panelled doors to the former lamp room (now buffet kitchen) and porters room, both with two rectangular pyramidal panels over a large square raised and fielded panel, all with bolection mouldings.

Set back to the right-hand side of the 1:3:1-bay range is a coal shed and gentlemen's toilet block which has a flat roof and glazed roof lantern. Its north wall is blind while its right-hand return has a three-panel coal shed door consisting of two rectangular raised and fielded panels over a large square raised and fielded panel, all with bolection mouldings. To its right are three single-light hopper windows with horizontal glazing bars. The toilet is accessed from the platform through a door identical to the coal shed door, over which is a dripmould.

The platform elevation comprises 10 bays of which all except the easternmost bay are covered by a wall-bracketed platform canopy with pierced daggerboard valancing comprised of alternating shingled (pointed) and scalloped (round ended) daggers. Its underside is clad with matchboard and the cast-iron brackets have foliated pierced spandrels. The fourth and eighth bays have two-panel double doors to the booking hall and waiting room (now buffet) respectively, both with raised and fielded panels with bolection mouldings, while the station master's office (now bookshop) in the seventh bay has an identical three-panelled door as described for the lamp room and porters room. The other seven bays have two-light windows under dripmoulds.

Internally, the station's treatment is largely identical throughout and includes herringbone parquet floors, deep skirting boards, moulded dado and picture rails, and matchboard-clad ceilings with moulded cornices.

The booking hall is of double height and divided into four bays by two king-post trusses in which the king post is formed by scrolled ironwork. Its east wall has a small ticket window with a moulded timber surround and counter shelf. On its west side is a back-to-back fireplace with a moulded-timber surround to a cast-iron grate with plain-tiled insets, pyramidal corner stops and a lintel bearing the initials of the Midland and Great Northern. The fireplace is flanked on each side by four-panelled doors with sunk bolection-moulded panels, with the left-hand door leading through to the ladies waiting room and the right-hand door to the ladies toilet.

The ladies waiting room has a back-to-back fireplace on its east side with an identical cast-iron grate as described for the booking hall, but with an elaborate timber surround with split-baluster jambs and mirrored overmantel. A four-panel door in its north wall leads through to the ladies toilet which has a quarry-tiled floor, painted brick walls, a late-20th-century matchboard-clad ceiling and late-20th-century reproduction sanitaryware by Thomas Crapper.

The waiting room (now buffet) has a replacement herringbone floor and matchboard-clad ceiling, both of late-20th-century date. On its west side is a four-panel door with sunk bolection-moulded panels to the booking office. An identical door in the east wall was inserted in the late 20th century when the lamp room was converted into a kitchen.

The booking office has a corner fireplace with a plain cast-iron surround and an identical cast-iron grate as described for the booking hall. In the porters room there is a cast-iron range and the gentlemen's toilet has a quarry-tiled floor, glazed brick walls, an original vitreous china wash basin, and late-20th-century reproduction sanitaryware by Thomas Crapper. The station master's office (now bookshop) has no historic fixtures of note and a late-20th-century matchboard ceiling.