Peckham Rye Station

Railway station built 1864-6 by Charles Henry Driver for the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, with later alterations in the mid-20th century.

Design and Materials

The approximately H-shaped building adopts a Continental Renaissance style, constructed in stock brick with stone dressings. The station was built at the junction of two railway lines: the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway and the London, Chatham and Dover Railway.

Principal Façade

The impressive three-storey façade features a central section with five round-headed windows flanked by projecting wings, each with two windows. A boldly moulded bracket cornice runs across the elevation, and several windows retain cast-iron balconettes. The roof has a curved profile with a central section in French mansard style. Though the roof has been recovered, its structure and form survive intact.

The other elevations are utilitarian and of lesser interest. The east and west sides are concealed by railway viaducts, whilst the south elevation is disfigured by a mid-20th century extension. The platforms have been altered and are not of special interest.

Interior Features

The interior contains three areas of special interest. First, a vast double-height booking office with a coved cornice and original ticket booths. A later opening was cut through the rear wall in the mid-20th century to provide access to the platforms via the new extension; the doors to the booking hall have been replaced and are of lesser interest.

Second, a dramatic stone staircase in the western wing features elaborate cast-iron balusters of considerable artistic quality. This work relates directly to Driver's published lectures on the use of cast-iron. The balustrades demonstrate a naturalistic appearance with foliage seeming to grow from the main baluster stem, whilst the balconettes express foliage like carved wood, with each leaf set in a circular frame.

Third, the vast former first-class waiting room above the booking office retains its exposed barrel-vaulted roof structure and remnants of dado panelling.

The other interior areas, including the mid-20th century extension, are of lesser interest. The interior of the eastern wing, leased as a commercial outlet, was not inspected and may contain further features of special interest.

Architectural Context

Peckham Rye Station was built in the house style used by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway at other stations including Denmark Hill and Battersea Park, and at the Grosvenor Hotel fronting the line's terminus at Victoria Station. This style employed stock brick construction inspired by Italian and French Renaissance architecture. Though the plans were signed by the railway's Chief Engineer, Robert Jacomb-Hood (1822-1900), the design is known to be by Charles Henry Driver (1832-1900).

Of the series of suburban stations opened by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in London during the 1860s, only Grosvenor Road (disused), Peckham Rye, Denmark Hill and Battersea Park survive. The latter two are listed at Grade II. When built, Peckham Rye was at least the equal of Denmark Hill and much grander than Battersea Park.

The architecture was inspired by the Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria station, built 1860-61 by J.T. Knowles, which was closely associated with the railway company and one of the first buildings in London to have a French pavilion roof. In emulating this building, Driver brought consistency to the railway company's estate and placed Peckham Rye Station at the height of architectural fashion in the 1860s—unusual for a suburban station.

Original Features and Later Alterations

When built, Peckham Rye had much ironwork including colonettes with decorated spandrels supporting the platform canopies, ornamental cresting along the roofline, and an iron canopy projecting from the central pavilion of the tripartite street elevation in a foliate design. The station also had grand railings and canopies over two sides of its forecourt.

Between 1938 and 1951, much of the ironwork was removed and the rear courtyard of the H-shaped building was filled in with a staircase and corridor giving alternative access to the platforms. Around the same time, shops were built in the immediate vicinity of the principal elevation to the north, hemming in the station and diminishing the impact of its architecture on the streetscape.

The Architect: Charles Henry Driver

Charles Henry Driver was an architect who, according to his obituary, 'was largely employed by engineers', including leading 19th-century figures such as Sir Joseph Bazalgette. Driver worked with Bazalgette on the Abbey Mills and Crossness Pumping Stations and the Victoria Embankment. Through his collaboration with engineers, Driver was well-placed to explore the aesthetic qualities of iron as both a decorative and structural material.

Driver lectured to the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Society of Civil and Mechanical Engineers on the subject in the 1870s, positioning himself in the vanguard of architects and engineers researching the material. He also worked for a number of iron foundries on patterns and designs.

Driver's reputation was international. In the 1870s he designed an impressive market building which was constructed in Manchester and shipped to Santiago, Chile—one of the major prefabricated buildings of the late 19th century. He also designed the Estacao da Luz railway station in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

The ironwork surviving at Peckham Rye Station relates directly to Driver's writings about the use of cast iron. Driver wrote: 'if scroll-work ornamentation is used, all curves and sprays and leaves should spring from the main stem in a natural way, growing out of it, and not with appearance of being fastened on ... in foliation it should rather be flattened out, and the different veinings of markings scooped or dug out, as they would, in fact, be done in carved wood'.

What is remarkable about Driver's work at Peckham Rye is its virtuosity. Where the ironwork for most railway stations would have been to a standard design selected from a catalogue, the staircase and balconettes at Peckham Rye are specially designed by Driver for that station.

Significance

Peckham Rye Station is an impressive station and one of only four suburban stations on the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway in London which survive in the house style of the 1860s, defined by the use of stock brick, round-arched windows and bracketed cornices in a Continental Renaissance style. The mid-Victorian period was an age of ambition and continuing expansion by the railway companies, and they typically sought to mark their identity architecturally. Peckham Rye Station represents this characteristic in railway architecture of the age.

Furthermore, the building is of special interest as the work of a significant architect, Charles Henry Driver, whose work at Peckham Rye Station—particularly the grand stone and cast-iron staircase and the balconettes on the principal elevation—can be related to his lectures on the decorative and structural qualities of cast iron in the 1870s.

The special interest is concentrated in the principal elevation and the three public spaces described above: the booking hall, the staircase and the waiting room. The other areas and platforms are of lesser or no interest.