Torquay Station

Torquay railway station was built in 1878 and extended in the early 20th century by JE Danks and W Lancaster-Owen, engineers Vernon and Ewens of Cheltenham, for the Great Western Railway. The station is constructed of snecked and rock-faced grey limestone with dressings likely of Bathstone, including quoins, stringcourses, eaves cornices and window surrounds. It has a Welsh slate roof with lead roll hips and ridges, steeply pitched hipped pavilion roofs with ornate iron cresting, and rendered chimney stacks. The design displays influences of the French Chateau style.

The station consists of two ranges of buildings, one on either side of the railway lines. The western range is longer, housing offices, the main entrance, and a ticket office, with a canopy over the pavement outside and a deeper canopy supported by 11 columns, the last two of which are paired under the footbridge. This canopy is signed "Vernon & Ewens, engineers, Cheltenham.” A similar, shorter, range is on the opposite side of the line, its platform canopy extending beyond the north end but stopping short of the south. Stair towers at the south end of each range connect via a covered lattice iron girder footbridge over the lines, with a timber and glazed superstructure.

The eastern range features four pavilion roofs where the facade projects forward at intervals; the roof at the south end incorporates a clerestory above the stair tower. Windows are set within stone mullioned and transomed frames. The forecourt canopy is supported by large cast-iron brackets with foiled spandrels. The platform canopy features a continuous rooflight over cast-iron 4-centred-arched trusses with entwined foliage spandrels, supported on slender fluted cast-iron columns. This canopy is cantilevered out towards the line on similarly decorated brackets and has a fretted and pierced wooden fascia. This canopy was extended in the early 20th century under the bridge and beyond the south end, and both platform canopies were extended further at the north end in 1912. The western range has shorter, similar canopies.

The railway line from Newton Abbot to Torquay was originally built by the South Devon Railway Company in 1848, initially serving Torre station, but was extended to Paignton in 1859, at which time the original Torquay Station was opened. This station replaced the earlier station in 1878 when the South Devon Railway was taken over by the Great Western Railway.