Hove Railway Station and footbridge

This List entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 18/03/2019

TQ 2805 NE 579-1/12/106

HOVE STATION APPROACH (north side), Hove Railway Station and footbridge

GV II Railway station, including earlier railway station, and footbridge. Earlier building 1865-66, main building 1879, footbridge 1880s, station forecourt 1905. The architect of the main station was possibly F.D Bannister. Main station in classical style, earlier building in Tuscan villa style, and very similar to Portslade Railway Station (qv).

Main building: red brick, grey brick plinth, stone dressings and quoins, hipped bitumen covered slate roof with skylight, corrugated plastic sheeting to hipped roofs of station forecourt with cast-iron columns.

Plan: booking office with L-plan forecourt to south, two platforms with pedestrian bridge to north, (the bridge now linking Station Approach with Hove Park Villas with platform entrance closed), earlier station to east of booking office.

Main building: single-storey, seven bays, quoins to openings linked by continuous entablature, sash windows with six-pane upper lights, lower lights without glazing bars, two pedimented entrances with panelled double doors to booking office, double doors adjoining. Canopy carried on ornate fluted cast-iron columns with capitals and decorative brackets carrying ties, ornate stanchions to roof, shields with initials LBSCR (London, Brighton and South Coast Railway) incorporated in ironwork entablature; the simpler pieces of ironwork are thought to be renewals.

Earlier station: render over brick, bitumen covered hipped slate roof, bracket cornice; two storeys, 2:4:2 bays, end bays break forward slightly, segmental-headed window openings, moulded surrounds and sash windows without glazing bars. Main block flanked by two bay, single storey, rusticated wings, similar fenestration. At junction of the two stations, single-storey, two bay painted brick kiosk with hipped roof and cresting to ridge.

Interior of main station distinguished by console brackets to five-bay queen-post roof, cast-iron columns to platform canopies, plasterwork ceiling to waiting room, and remains of fine pedestrian bridge with twisted columns with acanthus leaf capitals surviving in places, also original cast-iron balusters.

The original railway station, known as Cliftonville, was closed in 1879 when the new station, then known as West Brighton, was built; in 1895 it was known as Hove.

Listing NGR: TQ2888805548