Former Railway Mission

Former Railway Mission

The former Railway Mission on Prince of Wales Road is a double-height building designed by Edward Boardman and Sons and built between 1901 and 1903.

Materials and Structure

The building is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and has a tiled, chamfered plinth. The pitched roof is covered with Welsh slates. The plan is long and rectangular, with the principal elevation facing Prince of Wales Street and the rear elevation on Rose Lane.

Exterior

The front is dominated by a single triangular gable with a stone-coped parapet. The centrally placed glazed double-door has a five-pane over-door light and a lugged architrave. On either side are six-over-six sash windows in moulded square-headed architraves. These apertures are linked at lintel level by a moulded string course. Above this runs a chequered frieze of red bricks and stone. In the centre of the frieze, above the door, is a stone tablet decorated on either side with an Art Nouveau fruit tree branch and bearing the raised lettering "RAILWAY MISSION". Above the frieze is a Diocletian-style window spanning the width of the façade. The three windows within this feature are set within raised moulded architraves, with the central one being lugged and the red brick between suggesting the mullions. Seven regularly spaced keystones appear in the semi-circular moulded arch, with stylised carved acanthus leaves at each foot.

Interior

The interior contains a double-height hall with a timber-ribbed, canted ceiling and decorative timber brackets supported on moulded corbels. The south wall holds a group of three small, splayed, round-headed stained glass windows. Beneath these is a timber-panelled stage with an incorporated three-sided pulpit in the centre. Each side of the pulpit is decorated with a triple, carved Art Nouveau design containing brass memorial plates. The rear door of the hall opens into a quarry-tiled lobby with fitted cupboards, leading down to the basement. Around 2004, the interior was renovated and a single-storey suite of meeting and utility rooms was constructed at the north (entrance) end of the open hall. The original hall remains visible only from the stage at the south end.

History

The Railway Mission was an evangelical organisation founded in 1881 to provide spiritual welfare and prayer meetings for railway workers and their families who were unable to attend regular church services due to their unsociable working hours. By 1900 there were four hundred groups dispersed throughout the country with seven thousand members. In Norwich, the railway station at Thorpe Road opened in 1886, but the Railway Mission had been established there three years earlier to serve the workers building it. Initially, the Mission held services in the school room at Princes Street Lecture Hall, in the waiting room at Thorpe Station (as Norwich Railway Station was formerly known), and later in St Andrew's Hall from 1885. The purpose-built hall on Prince of Wales Road, which opened in 1903, was a fitting location given that the road had been constructed specifically to connect the railway to the town.

Edward Boardman and Sons was founded by Edward Boardman (1833–1910), with his son Edward Thomas Boardman (1861–1950) later joining the practice. Edward Boardman was a prolific architect, designing and restoring country houses, public buildings and churches in the Norwich area, including the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, the former Primitive Methodist Chapel and Sunday School in Queens Road, and the conversion of Norwich Castle into a museum. His son was principally responsible for the Edwardian designs and later became Lord Mayor of Norwich in 1905 and High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1933. Boardman and Sons designed over thirty listed buildings. The plans for the Railway Mission bear the name Boardman and Sons, though it remains unclear whether the design was by the father or son.

The Railway Mission continued to hold services in the hall until the late 1990s. The building is now owned by the Norwich Evangelical Free Church. The interior renovation around 2004 accommodated the Church's present-day needs through insertion of a suite of single-height rooms at the east (entrance) end, which now account for approximately two-thirds of the floor space. The original open hall cannot be seen from these rooms, though a door at the suite's end leads to the hall at the west end where the stage is located. The roof and stage have remained intact, though the original entrance hall and some wall panelling were removed to accommodate the new rooms.