Victoria Railway Station The Former London, Chatham And Dover Railway Station Including Train Shed

This railway terminus comprises two distinct stations built between 1860 and 1910, now unified but retaining their separate architectural characters. The eastern side was built in 1860–62 for the London, Chatham and Dover Railway Company, with the train shed designed by the engineer Sir John Fowler. The station was remodelled in 1909, suffered bomb damage in 1944, and has undergone late 20th-century alterations.

The Original Station (1860–62)

The original station faces Hudson's Place. It is constructed of London stock brick with stucco dressings, though the roofs are not visible. The south end was destroyed in 1944. The building originally had three storeys, though the first two bays from the left are now only two storeys high. Fifteen bays survive, arranged in groups of 2 : 3 : 5 : 5, with another three bays missing from the left end. The second group of three bays is set forward, with the others set back in sequence.

The ground floor features horizontal rustication in stucco with arched doors and windows with keyed heads and plain glazing. The central entrance has paired Roman Doric columns on either side with narrow arched niches between the columns. This entrance leads to the Royal waiting rooms, used principally for meeting visiting royalty arriving from the Continent. The three-bay and first five-bay sections are fronted by a modern continuous canopy of steel and ridge-and-furrow glazing. A plat band with panelled aprons sits below the windows above.

The first and second floors have rusticated stucco quoins. First floor windows have stucco architraves with segmental pediments and 2 over 2-pane sashes. The window over the Royal entrance is tripartite with a central pediment. Second floor windows are smaller with eared architraves, and again there is a tripartite window over the Royal entrance. A stucco parapet caps the building, though the cornice has been removed and the roofs are not visible. The elevation to the concourse has similar window treatment but is more altered. The interiors were not seen during inspection. The booking hall has been changed several times, and the Royal rooms were not inspected.

The Train Shed (1862)

The train shed was designed by Sir John Fowler and built in 1862. It has two spans of tied arched wrought iron construction: one is 38 metres in width and 138 metres in length; the other is slightly wider and 117 metres in length, plus additional roofing over the concourse. The train shed roof is carried on eight cast iron columns which support light arched ribs with curved wrought iron rod ties. The roof is in six sections to the ridge, with sections four and five glazed on either side along the full length. This is one of the lightest and most elegant of the major station roofs from this period.

The Later Station Building (1909–10)

The later station building faces Wilton Road and Terminus Place. It was designed by Alfred W. Blomfield and W. J. Ancell, with sculpture by Henry C. Fehr, and built in 1909–10. It is constructed of Portland stone ashlar with some red brick facing to the concourse, and slate roofs. The style is Edwardian Baroque Revival.

Terminus Place Elevation

The Terminus Place elevation has three storeys and an attic, with a full three-storey centrepiece and mezzanine in the outer bays. The ten-bay frontage is arranged 1 : 2 : 5 : 2.

The ground floor has horizontal rustication with large square-headed keyed openings. A wide segmental arch supports the centre three bays of the five-bay section. This arch is rusticated and carries a cartouche. The mezzanine floor has small, square-headed windows arranged 1 : 2 : 0 : 2. The first floor has tall windows with eared architraves. Rusticated quoin pilasters separate each section. The first bay from the left and the bays supporting the centrepiece have attached Ionic column surrounds to the windows. A heavy cornice above supports a parapet, broken on the left by a segmental pediment and broken by supporters to the centrepiece.

The attic floor has a rectangular window in the left-hand pediment and in the supporting bays. Three windows with rusticated surrounds occupy the centre, two with segmental pediments behind a balustrade in the mansard roof on either side. The central supporters have four mermaid caryatids carrying broken pediments with wreaths and a decorated cartouche. The centrepiece rises to a blind wall inscribed "SOUTHERN RAILWAY" (originally "SOUTH EASTERN & CHATHAM RAILWAY"); the roof is not visible behind.

Wilton Road Elevation

The Wilton Road elevation has ground, mezzanine, first and attic floors except for the first bay on the left, which adjoins the earlier London, Chatham and Dover Railway building. This single bay has a tripartite window on the ground floor and a wide, segmentally arched window with keyed head above. The far right-hand bay also has a similar façade to the one facing Terminus Place.

Between these is a balanced composition of eleven bays arranged 2 : 1 : 5 : 1 : 2. Tripartite windows occupy the ground floor, square mezzanine windows the mezzanine, and tall windows with architraves the first floor. The third and ninth bays are framed by rusticated pilasters and capped by pediments at parapet level. A heavy modillion cornice runs across. A panelled balustraded parapet is ramped up behind the pediments. Chimney stacks have weathered caps. The elevations to the concourse have similar features in red brick with Portland stone dressings.

The interiors were not seen during inspection and have been largely altered on the ground floor.

History

Victoria station was built in 1860–62 by the Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Company. Half the capital for this was subscribed by the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway, with the London, Chatham and Dover Railway subscribing one third and the Great Western Railway one sixth. The station was designed from the beginning as two separate stations used by different companies.

The oldest surviving part is the eastern or Kent side (that is, the London, Chatham and Dover Railway side), which opened on 25th August 1862. It was this side that was used by the Great Western Railway in conjunction with the West London Extension Railway, which connected with their main line at Old Oak Common via Battersea railway bridge; this opened the following year (2nd March 1863). The London, Chatham and Dover Railway station continued unchanged until after the company had amalgamated with the South Eastern Railway to form the South Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899.

The rebuilding of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway side of the station in 1906–08 inspired the South Eastern and Chatham Railway to respond with the highly decorated new frontage designed by Alfred W. Blomfield which fills the gap between the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway building and the original departure building of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway in Hudson's Place. This was built in 1909–10.

The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway's half of the station had first opened on 1st October 1860 and was designed by their engineer, R. Jacob Hood. By the late 19th century this station had become extremely overcrowded and it was decided to build a much larger and better planned one designed by their then Chief Engineer, Sir Charles Morgan. The new section along the Buckingham Palace Road was brought into use first in 1906–07 and the old station was then demolished (the entrance canopy dated 1880 survives at Hove station). The completed new station was formally opened on 1st July 1908.

The Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Company remained nominally independent of its user companies until Grouping, when both sides came within the Southern Railway. The Great Western Railway continued to have running powers into the eastern side of the station, although their last services seem to have run in 1915. The Southern Railway's first attempt at unification was to make the double arched opening through the wall between the two stations. This was done in 1924–25 and the platforms were then numbered right across the station as now.

Electric traction had arrived at the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway station in 1909 with the overhead system. This was changed to third rail in 1929 and under the Southern Railway rapidly expanded, with the Brighton service being electrified in 1933. Electrification on the Kent side also followed close on Grouping, with the local commuter services to Orpington being changed in 1925 and those to Gillingham and Maidstone in 1939; but the full length of the lines to Dover and Thanet were not completed until 1959, while Platforms 1–8 were lengthened the following year.

The Brighton side train shed and the screen wall along Buckingham Palace Road have now been rebuilt and replaced by office blocks over the tracks in the major rebuilding of the 1980s and 1990s undertaken by British Rail. The Kent side of the station, however, still remains much as it was at Nationalisation in 1948, with the war damage to the original part of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway station having never been properly reinstated, although it was given a new booking hall in 1951.