Farringdon London Regional Transport Underground Station

ISLINGTON

TQ3181NE COWCROSS STREET 635-1/77/349 (North side) 17/05/94 Farringdon LRT Underground Station

II

Includes: Nos.36-38 AND 40-42 COWCROSS STREET. The former Farringdon and High Holborn Station of the Metropolitan Railway, now a station shared by London Underground and British Rail under LRT management.The front building, to Cowcross Street, of 1922 by Charles Walter Clark; the train shed of 1865. Brick faced with white faience, some granite dressings and white and yellow exposed brick; glazed roof to front building so far as visible, the train shed is a glazed cast-iron construction supported on iron piers and with stock brick flank walls of the same date. The front building is all-but symmetrical to Cowcross Street with centrepiece of three bays containing the entrance; and three bays to either side with single-storey shop wings projecting forwards, each housing three shops and slightly overlapping the centrepiece. Central entrance with one broad flat-arched opening under a segmental moulding and two narrower segmental-arched openings to either side; London Transport metal and glazed awning now projecting from the fascia; shops have curved corners and are divided from each other by panelled pilasters supporting an entablature and blocking course. The shop fronts obscured by late C20 signage. Upper windows flat-arched with moulded architraves and panels between; quoins to centrepiece and outer corners; fascia with faience lettering; mutule cornice and stepped blocking course. In the return to Turnmill Street, flat-arched entrance with granite architrave including triple keystone; small flat-arched windows with keystones to ground floor, fascia panel for former Parcels Office, and six narrower flat-arched windows interspersed with panels to the first floor. Beyond that, three bays with round-arched windows under keystone remain from the 1865 station. Three platforms roofed by two shallow segmental-arched trussed and glazed roofs. Outer walls of yellow brick set in English bond and articulated by pilasters with two blank arches between: eleven such bays to the west side, ten to the east; various round-arched and segmental openings.The roofs are carried in the middle by paired metal columns with geometrical detailing at the capitals and decorative metal brackets. The front building is carried over the tracks by two segmental-arched bridges detailed in black brick. Farringdon Station was built as the terminus of the world's first underground railway, the Metropolitan Railway, which ran from here to Paddington. (Historians' file, English Heritage London Division).

Listing NGR: TQ3157581832