Former Goods Shed At Bearsted Railway Station

BEARSTED

144/0/10017 WARE STREET 05-JAN-11 Former goods shed at Bearsted Railway Station

GV II Former goods shed. Built in 1884 by Arthur Stride for the Maidstone and Ashford Railway. Classical style.

MATERIALS: Yyellow brick in Flemish bond with red brick dressings. Gabled slate roof.

PLAN: single-storey building of six bays with lower small single-storey building attached to the east.

EXTERIOR: the east side has a gable with red brick cornice and blocked oculus. The wide opening on the left side below is edged in black engineering brick and retains the original sliding door, ledged and with cross braces to the inside. On the right side is attached the smaller building, which has a chimney, moulded red cornice, cambered headed window opening and a door at the eastern end. The south side of the goods shed has a moulded red cornice, six recessed panels, the four central ones with cambered headed windows, and plinth. The west end has a moulded red brick cornice, blank oculus and right side opening edged in black engineering brick, retaining the wooden sliding door. The north side also has some recessed panels with cambered window openings and large double doors in the centre.

INTERIOR: there are brick pilasters to the side walls defining the bays and a wooden roof with angled queen struts, collar beams, metal supports between the collar beams and tie beams and clasped purlins.

HISTORY: the goods shed was built by 1884 for the Maidstone and Ashford Railway, which was constructed between 1880 and 1884 to give a direct connection between these two towns. It was probably designed by Arthur Stride who designed the railway station. At the same time, a weighbridge house, weighbridge and cattle dock were also constructed. The Maidstone and Ashford Railway was purchased by the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway when it was completed and became part of the south Eastern and Chatham Railway in 1899. The building is shown on the 1897 Ordnance Survey map and the footprint has not changed although the railway siding leading to it has been removed. The goods yard was shut in 1964 and became a storage yard for a firm of coal merchants until the 1990s.

SOURCES: C F Dendy Marshall, The History of the Southern Railway. Revised edition ed. Ian Allan, 453 Andrew Knight, The railways of South East England (1986), 47 C Awdry, Encyclopaedia of British Railway Companies, (1990)

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: the 1884 former goods shed adjoining Bearsted Railway Station, designed by Arthur Stride for the Maidstone and Ashford Railway is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Intactness: It is a little-altered example of a goods shed on the Maidstone to Ashford Railway in its Classical house style. * Group Value: Bearsted is the only station on this line to retain the goods shed, the station buildings, weigh house, weighbridge and cattle dock and is therefore the best exemplar of the Maidstone and Ashford Railway.

TQ7980656134